50TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL

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David Crosby
Tyler Bryant &
The Shakedown
Chris Rea
BLACK STAR RIDERS
ROBERT PLANT
WHITESNAKE
 NOVEMBER 2017 ISSUE 242

Features
34 Fleetwood Mac
One band, a myriad of eras and a whole lotta moving and
shaking going on. Classic Rock celebrates half a century of
Fleetwood Mac, beginning with Mick Fleetwood taking us
through his band’s early blues years. Then we move on to the
crazy drama of the multi-platinum, drug-addicted worldwide
hit machine years, and beyond…

52 Foo Fighters
Dave Grohl was supposed to spend 2017 taking some time out.
Instead he ended up with a new Foos album exploring his
darkest thoughts.

56 Chris Rea
Rock’s great survivor on industry sharks, strokes, cancer and
why he’s earned the right to sing the blues.

60 Thin Lizzy
They were just another rock band, then they released Jailbreak
and joined the A-listers. Now they had to stay there.

66 Steve Winwood
From teen sensation to Traffic, Blind Faith, session work and
solo star, it’s been a long, successful and gem-studded career.

72 Bruce Dickinson
Fencer, author, pro pilot, cancer survivor… He’s not just the
fronman with one of the world’s biggest bands, you know.

76 Tyler Bryant
How a chance meeting as an 11-year-old lead to him becoming
a shit-hot guitarist and playing with some of rock’s superstars.

80 Lou Reed
Moving to London and hooking up with Bowie, they created
the classic Transformer, the defining record of Lou’s career.

34
Fleetwood Mac
MICK FLEETWOOD: DANIEL SULLIVAN

Where did it all go wrong? Then right.

Then wrong again. Then… You really,
really couldn’t make this story up.
 NOVEMBER 2017 ISSUE 242
Regulars
14 The Dirt
Classic Rock bids a heartfelt goodbye, and thank you for the
music, to Walter Becker, one half of Steely Dan… How to get
Gene Simmons to visit your house ($50,000 is all it takes)…
Welcome back H.e.a.t, Gentle Giant and Galactic Cowboys…
Say hello to Lukas Nelson and Gold Key, say goodbye as well to
Holger Czukay, Dave Hlubek, Grant Hart, Don Williams…

21 Raw Power
Gibson guitars and watchmaker Raymond Weil team up for
a timepiece that pays tribute to an icon: the Gibson Les Paul.

26 The Stories Behind

The Songs
The Cranberries
How a storming left-turn, an incendiary, furious track about
the bombings in Northern Ireland, made them massive.

28 Q&A
David Crosby
The political and outspoken former Byrd on protests, life
and death and the Pope possibly being a big fan.

32 Six Things You Need

To Know About
Kadavar
Their face fuzz gets them into trouble and their new album,
Rough Times, is a first-class trip. Meet the beardy Berlin trio.

85 Reviews
New albums from Robert Plant, Ronnie Montrose,
Motorpsycho, Europe, L.A. Guns, Walter Trout,
The Professionals, Lionize… Reissues from Whitesnake,
Emerson Lake & Palmer, The Jam, Steve Miller Band,
Grand Funk Railroad, Sex Pistols, Montrose, Nick Oliveri…
DVDs, films and books on Bruce Dickinson, The Who,
Lou Reed, Steely Dan, L7, Jeff Beck, XTC… Live reviews
of Psychedelic Furs, Voodoo Six, Band Of Horses…

102 Buyer’s Guide

Mick Ronson
He played on some of Bowie’s greatest records, but the
talents of the guitar great from Hull stretched much further.

108 Live Previews

Must-see gigs from The Doobie Brothers, Dweezil Zappa,
Redd Kross, Mount Holly and Jonny Lang. Plus full gig
listings – find out who’s playing where and when.

130 Heavy Load

Ricky Warwick
The Black Star Riders frontman on the bands he’s been in,
school, fighting, underage drinking and uncomfortable clogs.

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Thin Lizzy
The making of Bad Reputation.
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ifty years. Half a century. Five

decades. It doesn’t matter how you
slice it, ultimately it’s a very, very
long period of time. As the old cliché
goes, you get less time for murder…
While many bands began their
illustrious ascendancy back in the heady
days of 1967, there aren’t that many of
them who are still very much a going concern.
But Fleetwood Mac are one such entity. And this
month we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary
of rock’s greatest, longest-running soap opera.
It’s also a first for Classic Rock, because while the
Mac have been mentioned in our pages a million
times during the magazine’s existence, it’s the first
time we’ve put the band on our cover. The Mac of
today – Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Christine
McVie, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham –
is very different to the Mac that guitarist Peter
Green put together all those years ago, and Mick
Fleetwood takes us through the early years of the
band that bears his name, starting on page 34.
That’s followed by the rest of the Mac’s long drama. Subscribe!
Elsewhere we sit down for a chinwag with Iron
Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson as he’s poised to release
his autobiography, celebrate 40 years of Thin
Lizzy’s Bad Reputation album, chat to Foo-in-Chief
Dave Grohl and so much more…

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reap exclusive subscriber benefits.
THE COVER: FLEETWOOD MAC Visit www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk
IMAGE MANIPULATION BY
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MAGICTORCH Editor

This month’s contributors

HENRY YATES
Henry Yates has written for
music titles including Classic
Rock, Guitarist, Total Guitar
and NME, and is the
co-author of Walter Trout’s
official biography. This
month he revisits the
tumultuous early history of
Fleetwood Mac, and enjoys
a plain-spoken encounter
with the unsinkable Chris
Rea. More at www.yates
creativecopywriting.com
MIKE CHIPPERFIELD
Mike is one half of Brighton
design studio Magictorch
who’ve been chipping in with
CR covers for years now. “I
thoroughly enjoyed this one,”
he says. “We were channelling
Tango In the Night as there’s
a bit more visual inspiration
in the source material than
their other covers. I know it’s
cooler to prefer the Peter
Green years but I’ve always
had a soft spot for Rumours!”
DAVE EVERLEY
Blimey. We didn’t half keep
‘Diamond’ Dave Everley busy
this issue. Among other
things, he unravelled the last
20 years of the Fleetwood
Mac saga (p48), spent some
time in church repenting his
sins – and hanging out with
Dan Reed (p114), interrogated
Bruce Dickinson (p72) and
also found the time to get the
lowdown on hotshot Tyler
Bryant (p76). Phew!
 Stereo
Can also be played
on mono
equipment

SIR K 66 087
(2SRK 1987)

Germany: Z
France: WE 666

LC 2112 5150

Established 1998

Editor Art Editor Features Editor

Siân Llewellyn Darrell Mayhew Polly Glass
Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown,
Playing this month: The Dust Coda, The Dust Coda Grave Pleasures, Motherblood
Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown
Production Editor Reviews Editor Online Editor News/Live Editor
Paul Henderson Ian Fortnam Fraser Lewry Dave Ling
The Tubes, Young And Rich Ian Dury, New Boots And Panties!! Myrkur, Mareridt Sons Of Apollo, Psychotic Symphony

Contributing writers Contributing photographers

Marcel Anders, Geoff Barton, Tim Batcup, Mark Beaumont, Max Bell, Essi Berelian, Mark Blake, Simon Bradley,
Paul Brannigan, Rich Chamberlain, Stephen Dalton, Johnny Dee, Malcolm Dome, Lee Dorrian, Mark Ellen,
Claudia Elliott, Paul Elliott, Dave Everley, Jerry Ewing, Hugh Fielder, Gary Graff, Michael Hann, John Harris,
Nick Hasted, Barney Hoskyns, Jon Hotten, Rob Hughes, Neil Jeffries, Emma Johnston, Dom Lawson, Paul
Lester, Ken McIntyre, Lee Marlow, Gavin Martin, Alexander Milas, Paul Moody, Grant Moon, Kate Mossman,
Kris Needs, Bill Nelson, Paul Rees, Chris Roberts, David Quantick, Johnny Sharp, Sleazegrinder, Terry Staunton,
David Stubbs, Everett True, Jaan Uhelszki, Mick Wall, Paddy Wells,
Philip Wilding, Henry Yates, Youth
Thanks this issue to Louise Brock (design) and Mark Wheatley/Justin Hood (production)
Email addresses: firstname.lastname@futurenet.com
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Kevin Estrada, James Fortune, Jill Furmanovsky, Herb Greene, Bob Gruen, Michael Halsband, Ross Halfin,
Mick Hutson, Will Ireland, Robert Knight, Marie Korner, Barry Levine, Jim Marshall, John McMurtrie,
Gered Mankowitz, David Montgomery, Kevin Nixon, Denis O’Regan, Barry Plummer, Ron Pownall,
Neal Preston, Michael Putland, Mick Rock, Pennie Smith, Stephen Stickler, Leigh A. van der Byl, Chris Walter,
Mark Weiss, Barrie Wentzell, Baron Wolman, Michael Zagaris, Neil Zlozower.
Cover image manipulation: Mike Chipperfield @ Magictorch
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 SS
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 Iron Maiden release
a live package,
recorded on their most
Thank you recent bout of touring,
on November 17.
and good night. Produced by Tony
Newton and Maiden
bass player Steve
Grant Hart Harris, The Book Of
March 18, 1961 – September 13, 2017 Souls: Live Chapter is
available via Warner
Bob Mould has led the tributes to his Music on CD, deluxe
Hüsker Dü bandmate Grant Hart, who CD and vinyl audio
at the age of 56 has lost a battle with
liver cancer. “We made amazing music
together,” the guitarist said of the
Minnesota-based group’s former
formats, and a concert
film is available to
stream free online or
as a digital download.
Holger Czukay
drummer. “When we fought about the March 24, 1938 – September 5, 2017
details, it was because we both cared.” As this issue went to
Hart was also a member of the press, all four
alternative rock trio Nova Mob. members of Polish Holger Czukay, the bassist and After leaving Can in 1977 for a solo
death metal band a co-founder of the pioneering German career, he worked as a producer and/or
Don Williams Decapitated were band Can, has died at the age of 79. He collaborator with Brian Eno, Japan singer
May 27, 1939 – September 8, 2017 being held in custody was found by a neighbour at his David Sylvian, U2 guitarist The Edge,
in the US on charges apartment, converted from Can’s old Public Image Limited’s Jah Wobble, the
With 17 country music smash hits to his of kidnapping and studio just outside Cologne. The cause of Eurythmics and the German band Trio.
name, including You’re My Best Friend rape. They stand death had yet to be revealed as this issue He also appeared on the 1992 album The
and Lord, I Hope This Day Is Good, Don accused of assaulting went to press. Mermaid, a project that featured Peter
Williams was a colossus of the genre. a woman on their tour Gabriel and Annie Lennox.
“I never intended to become a rock or
He was as a member of the Pozo Seco bus following a show pop musician,” Czukay said back in Czukay became a pioneer of sampling
Singers before hitting the solo trail in in Spokane, 1994. “What I wanted to become was before the term was even invented, using
1971. The Texan singer-songwriter had Washington. They a creative person.” random snippets of sound recorded
been suffering from emphysema. He plan to contest all of Having studied under acclaimed but from short-wave radios and pasting them
was 78 years old. the allegations controversial composer Karlheinz into recordings.
brought against them. Stockhausen in the 1960s, and Back in April, under the name The Can
Murray Lerner subsequently working briefly as a music Project, a variation of the group’s line-up
May 8, 1927 – September 2, 2017 Singer Mitchel Emms that included Can’s ever-present keyboard
teacher, Czukay performed on nine of
A filmmaker who captured some of the has left The Can’s albums as well as engineering them. player Irmin Schmidt and American
most iconic moments in rock history, Treatment to pursue Alongside Tangerine Dream, Neu! and vocalist and early Can member Malcolm
Murray Lerner has died of kidney other ventures. The Faust, Can were front-runners of the Mooney reconvened without Czukay to
failure, at the age of 90. His film Festival split is completely following decade’s krautrock scene, perform with the London Symphony
showed Bob Dylan playing amplified amicable. Currently mixing ambient and electronic music Orchestra and Sonic Youth guitarist
writing a follow-up to with rock and avant garde. Thurston Moore. DL
rock for the first time, and Message To
their third album, last
Love was a warts-‘n’-all depiction of the year’s Generation Me,

Dave Hlubek
1970s Isle of Wight Festival. the Cambridge band
are looking for
Jason Corsaro a replacement with
July 27, 1959 – August 16, 2017
“a great voice, a killer
New Yorker Jason Corsaro, a mixer, attitude and a passion August 28, 1951 – September 3, 2017
engineer and producer who worked for rock‘n’roll”.
with artists including the Rolling
Stones, the Power Station, Duran Dave Hlubek, Ingram went on to
Duran, The Cars, Paul Simon, a co-founding guitarist take over the running
Soundgarden and Chic, has died of of southern rock band of Molly Hatchet,
stomach cancer, at the age of 58. Molly Hatchet, has died something that Hlubek
at the age of 66, found hard to stomach.
Will Youatt reportedly having In 2005, while he was a
Died 13 September, 2017 suffered a heart attack. member of Skinny
Born in Jacksonville, Molly, he told Classic
Best known for a spell with Welsh Florida, Hlubek also Rock: “The name once
rockers Man, Swansea-born bassist sang lead vocals for really meant
and singer Michael ‘Will’ Youatt also Molly Hatchet in the something, until
played with the King Bees, Pete A new bookazine, group’s early days somebody [Ingram] got
Brown’s Piblokto, Quicksand and Deke titled 100 Greatest before the addition of a hold of it by a clerical
Leonard’s Iceberg, among others. He Rock Albums Of All Danny Joe Brown in error. I hear these days
was 67 years old. Time (pictured) is set 1974. He was part of they do good shows and
to reveal the best-ever the six-man line-up bad ones, but all things
Jane Train rock releases, as voted who recorded the come to an end and,
Died August 23, 2017 for by the readers of group’s genre-classic believe me, there’s
Classic Rock. It’s on self-titled debut, a finale on the way.”
Adrenaline Mob’s tour manager has sale on October 28, released in 1978, on which the guitar However, later that same year Hlubek
become the second victim of the car priced £9.99. playing was split with Duane Roland and rejoined Molly Hatchet, and continued to
crash that killed the group’s bassist Steve Holland. Hlubek remained with the play with them while his health allowed.
David Z. Forty-eight-year-old Jane Train Bob Seger says he is band for a further five albums before “Dave will be missed but never
(her real name), passed away following releasing a new studio being replaced by Bobby Ingram due to forgotten, as the music lives on through
the injuries she suffered in the crash. his legacy in Molly Hatchet,” said
GETTY x2

album in November. self-confessed “unbearable” levels of rock-

The 72-year-old star excess and substance abuse. a statement from the current band. DL
singer’s last release
was Ride Out in 2014.
 Walter Becker
February 20, 1950 – September 03, 2017
Walter Becker, the bassist, guitarist and co-founder of
Steely Dan, has passed away due to as yet undisclosed causes.
The 67-year-old was due to appear with Steely Dan at the
upcoming BluesFest shows in the UK and Ireland. According
to his Steely Dan partner Donald Fagen, Becker had been
“recovering from a procedure” of an unspecified nature.
Back in the summer, having been advised by
doctors not to leave his Maui home, Becker sat out
the band’s concerts in New York and Los Angeles,
where he was deputised by Larry Calton, the noted
session guitarist who appeared on Steely Dan’s
1980 album, Gaucho, among others.
Soon after the loss of his colleague, Fagen said in
a statement: “I intend to keep the music we created
together alive as long as I can with the Steely Dan
band”, confirming their spot at BluesFest, though
as this issue of Classic Rock went to press Donald
also cancelled the remainder of a tour with his
other band, the Nightflyers, due to illness.
Becker and Fagen met in 1967 while studying at
Bard College in New York. Together the pair forged
an instant writing connection. Fagen recalls:
“We liked a lot of the same things: jazz (from the
1920s through the mid-60s), WC Fields, the Marx
Brothers, science fiction, Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut,
Thomas Berger, and Robert Altman films come to
mind. Also soul music and Chicago blues.”
“They never came out of their room, they
stayed up all night,” adds Terence Boylan, another
musician based at Bard. “They looked like ghosts
– black turtlenecks, and skin so white that it
looked like yogurt. Absolutely no activity, chain-
smoking Lucky Strikes and dope.”
Four years later the pair followed an associate
called Gary Katz who had become a staff producer
for ABC Records, relocating to California to
become staff writers for the label, where they
formed the nucleus of a revolving group of
musicians known as Steely Dan, named after
an oversized, steam-powered strap-on vibrator
they’d read about in Naked Lunch, a novel by
William S. Burroughs.
Having abandoned the notion of forming an
actual band that at first included guitarists Jeff
‘Skunk’ Baxter and Denny Dias, drummer Jim
Hodder and vocalist David Palmer, over the next
decade Becker and Fagen drew in the cream of the
musicians’ world to create their Steely Dan albums
– often esoteric in nature but smooth as silk, and
pieced together in the studio with levels of care and
scrutiny that separated the men from the boys.
Says Fagen: “Walter had a very rough childhood
– I’ll spare you the details. Luckily, he was smart
as a whip, an excellent guitarist and a great
songwriter. He was cynical about human nature,
including his own, and hysterically funny. Like
a lot of kids from fractured families, he had the knack of
creative mimicry, reading people’s hidden psychology and
transforming what he saw into bubbly, incisive art.”
From Can’t Buy A Thrill in 1972 to the aforementioned Gaucho,
Steely Dan ruled the FM Radio airwaves, seducing their
listeners with an erudite, often darkly humoured style of rock
This month The Dirt was compiled by Lee Dorrian, Dave Everley, Ian Fortnam, Paul Henderson, Jamie Hibbard, Rob Hughes, Dave Ling, Will Simpson
that drew from many other areas to produce something
unique. Featuring the talents of almost 40 players including
Michael McDonald on backing vocals, 1977s Aja, their first
platinum-selling record, is widely considered a watermark for
both the band and for the genre of jazz rock.
As über-perfectionists, both themselves and the poor sods
that they hired, touring was largely undertaken
under sufferance. Quick witted and dry as the
THE STARS
PAY TRIBUTE Sahara, together Becker and Fagen struck fear
into interviewers, especially when grilled in
Walter was a musical union. When Classic Rock spoke to them during
icon and wonderful the promotion of their comeback disc Two
guy. My condolences
to his family and Against Nature, writer Philip Wilding began – not
to Donald. unreasonably – by asking why they had felt it
Larry Carlton necessary to take a 20-year break.
He was a gifted “I exploded sometime around 1980, I think,
musician/composer, but they put all the pieces back together again,”
a poet of real wit and responded Becker, known to have had a drug
intellect. Always
insightful, brutally period during the time-frame concerned. “We
honest at times also didn’t really fall out or anything, I think we were
usually hysterically just sick of each other. We’d been in the studio for
funny. We were all
lucky to know him. twelve years, throughout the 1970s, and twelve
Michael years is a long time for any decade.”
McDonald In his story, Wilding would describe Becker
Steely Dan music (“the one with the glasses”) and Fagen (“the one
touched me deeply. with the permanent scowl”) as “achingly droll
Steve Lukather, – exasperating so at times”, while they in turn
Toto taunted him for the way he spoke. “Is this a bad line
Steely Dan took rock or have you got a thick accent?” demanded Becker.
probably the closest to “You’re Welsh? So it is your accent. Well, there’s
pure jazz it has ever nothing we can do about that, at this point…”
been. Their style was
innovative and truly In rather more serious tones while talking to the
inimitable. Walter Independent newspaper, Becker said of the break-
defined a guitar style up: “We had pursued an idea beyond the point
that was all his own.
Sad to see him go. where it was practical. That album [Gaucho] took
Brian May, Queen about two years, and we were working on it all of
that time. It was a very painful process.”
Steely Dan was
a one-of-a-kind group. In the wake of Two Against Nature, which won
The world is forever four Grammy Awards including Album Of The
grateful for their music. Year, Steely Dan would make one further studio
Warren Haynes,
Gov’t Mule album, Everything Must Go, and tour whenever they
felt in the mood or necessity called – which wasn’t
A unique artist in often. It’s unknown whether Fagen will continue
a world of imitators.
Michael Des to make records under the Steely Dan umbrella
Barres without his partner, though we suspect not.
Neither do we know whether Carlton will appear
What brilliant music he
and Donald created with Fagen at the BluesFest dates.
together. What a gift When Becker and Fagen were inducted into the
to the world. Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2001 they spurned
David Longdon,
Big Big Train the traditional acceptance speech to thank all of
the musicians that they’d worked with (“It’s a very
I’m truly sad that long list”) and to take questions from the celebrity-
I never got to meet one
of my all-time favourite filled audience, before Becker demanded of the
mentors. gathering: “Who was the original drummer in the
Julian Lennon Mothers Of Invention? After all, this is the Rock
And Roll Hall Of Fame; some of you must know
this information.”
Yes, Walter Becker was cranky. Besides that cantankerous
disposition he demanded that musicians push themselves
to the very limits, but the results of his lifetime’s work – not
to mention sales of around 40 million copies – speak for
themselves. He will be very much missed. DL
 Gene Simmons
with his new box
set, The Vault.
The shooting of
a documentary film
about Lynyrd Skynyrd
has been halted due
to a row over the
involvement of
a former member of
the band. Skynyrd’s
current guitarist Gary
Rossington and
representatives of
former members
Ronnie Van Zandt and
Steve Gaines, who
both perished in the
1977 accident, have
sued Cleopatra
Get a home Entertainment, the
makers of Street
visit from Survivor: The True Story

Gene Simmons!
For $50,000 he’ll hand-deliver
Of The Lynyrd Skynyrd
Plane Crash, for hiring
the band’s former
Galactic Cowboys
drummer Artimus Pyle
as the story’s writer.
The metal-with-a pop-centre band return – and this time
his new box set to your door.
they’ll be careful not to be seen as "King’s X's little brother”.
Mick Fleetwood
Gene Simmons celebrates 50 years in believes that
music with a limited-edition boxed set Fleetwood Mac’s Galactic Cowboys sit near the top You were closely associated with
featuring 150 never-before-released tracks. 2018 tour won’t be of the league table of Great Lost Bands Of King’s X. Too closely, maybe?
What’s more, for a mere $50,000 (£37,000) their swansong. “In The 90s. Like a heavier version of fellow Those guys were our friends, they were
the Kiss bassist/vocalist is offering to travel my mind it isn’t [the Texans King’s X, the Houston four-piece great for us, but it was tough being King’s
to your home, deliver the package and even final tour], and pitched themselves as Metallica-meets- X’s little brother. It did stifle us a little bit.
hang around for a couple of hours to chat. everyone in the band The Beatles, welding the heavy-duty I don’t regret it, but I just wish we’d done
Why would anyone spend more than has decided that it’s riffing of the former to the latter’s more with other people as well.
most people earn in a year for that? We’ll let not,” he tells Rolling anything-goes approach. Seventeen years
Gene’s biggest fan – himself – answer that. Stone of the upcoming after they split up, the Cowboys have The Cowboys had a unique sound. Did
“The Vault is the largest box set of all time; 18-month world tour. returned with a new album, Long Way Back audiences get what you were doing
it’s almost three feet tall and it weighs forty To The Moon. Vocalist Ben Huggins back then?
pounds, and it spans a lifetime, from my very explains how they achieved lift-off again. It confused some people. We did our
first song, My Uncle Is A Raft, which was first real tour supporting Overkill, who
recorded in 1966, right up to 2016,” he tells Whose idea was it to were just balls-to-the-
us. “It has songs I wrote with Bob Dylan, and get back together? wall thrash metal.
three more featuring Edward and Alex Van Bill Evans, who is We went on and did
Halen; Joe Perry from Aerosmith is on there. acting as our rep for “I got dragged our thing with an
All of the Kiss guys, too. This thing has taken [new label] Mascot, acoustic guitar and
eight years to collate. called Monty [Colvin, into the pit by my a harmonica, and
“Let me be blunt. Thanks to my fans, I’m bass] three years ago, people were just
rich,” he continues, “and I’m so proud of The asking if we had any hair, but I carried getting angry. I got
Vault that at my own personal cost I will fly The 50-year career of interest in getting dragged into the pit
around the world and hand-deliver it. I’ll David Bowie back together. Monty on playing.” by my hair at a club
even pet your dog, too.” (pictured) recently said: “Let me make in Pittsburgh. I had to
The Vault is available in various editions, reached a major some calls.” I was like: “Yes, I’ll do it.” fight my way out and back on stage, but
so if the thought of a home visit from Gene milestone with the late I gotta tell you, I have missed Galactic I carried on playing. It was like I had been
is too terrifying there are also other ways of singer’s one billionth Cowboys for a long time. I was the last baptised by the crowd: “Okay, they didn’t
receiving it, details of which you can find at stream on Spotify. one holding on back then. I didn’t want kill me and now they’re getting into it.”
www.genesimmonsvault.com Bowie’s Top 10 most the band to end.
After years of acrimony, Simmons streamed tracks are: Individually you’re all Christians, but
recently renewed his friendship with former Heroes, Let’s Dance, Why did you split up? you never pushed Galactic Cowboys
Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley when the two of Space Oddity, Life On Offers for tours were drying up, we had as a Christian band. Why not?
them sat down to write two songs together. Mars, Starman, Rebel our budget for the last album [2000’s Let It I’m not a minister, I’m not a preacher, I’m
Now it seems likely they will share a stage Rebel, Moonage Go] cut, people were starting to grumble. not an evangelist. I’m a singer in a rock
together, as part of a benefit concert in Daydream, Changes, It was a spiralling thing. band. If you hire a Christian plumber, do
support of victims of Hurricane Harvey, Ziggy Stardust and, you ask him to do a sermon before he
held in St Paul, Minnesota on September 20. perhaps surprisingly, You were originally signed to Geffen, clears your drain?
“People have lost their homes and need Modern Love. the same label as Nirvana, and your
a lot of help, and the show is already sold debut album came out a month before Do you wonder if the world needs
out,” says Simmons. “Don Felder, The Jim Lea, the former Nevermind. Did that help or hinder a new Galactic Cowboys album?
Jayhawks and Cheap Trick will all perform, Slade bassist, makes your band? The world didn’t need the first six or
with the Gene Simmons Band as headliners. a personal appearance I can give you a quote from Gary Gersh, seven! We did it because we wanted to do
I suspect Ace will try to jump up on stage, at the Robin 2 in who signed us. They were stoked about it. There’s something about creating this
and we will play together again.” Bilston on November us, we were having constant thing that’s totally your own, with your
Now that Frehley’s demons are vanquished, 5 for the first official conversations with the label. And then patented sound, that’s totally fulfilling.
is it possible he could re-join Kiss? showing of a DVD when Nirvana took off it was like [makes Yeah, there’s some selfishness there, but
“We tried three times, that’s enough,” filmed at the same shutting-down sound] – nothing. They I don’t care. DE
Simmons replies. “Ace will always be venue in 2002, titled put out one more album and then they
a member of the family, but it’s time to let For One Night Only. lost interest in us: “Yeah, you’re gonna Long Way Back To The Moon is released
it be.” DL Proceeds will go have to leave now.” on November 17 via Mascot.
to Cancer Research
18 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM UK and Dementia UK.
 “I’m always so confused when people say that
my songs sound so different from each other.
To me it just sounds like rock’n’roll.”
Lukas Nelson
& Promise Of The Real
A famous dad and Neil Young’s seal of approval
help, but this band show lots of real promise.
“For a long time I wanted to be an Olympic swimmer,” says Lukas Nelson.
“I was really into skateboarding and surfing too, but then music took over.”
For all his early ambitions, there was a certain inevitability about the
career path he would eventually take. Lukas is the son of country legend
Willie Nelson, and for the past nine years has been fronting his
own band, Promise Of The Real. “Learning to play guitar and
writing songs is how I got close to my dad,” says Lukas, whose
first musical memory is being on stage with The Highwaymen,
the country supergroup formed by his father, Johnny Cash, Merle
Haggard and Kris Kristofferson. “I feel that the communication
between us is a big part of why I play music.”
Taking their name from a lyric in Neil Young’s 1974 tune Walk
On, Promise Of The Real hit the sweet spot between country,
southern blues and classic rock’n’roll. Latest album Lukas Nelson
& Promise Of The Real stirs memories of The Band, Leon Russell,
Delaney & Bonnie and Glen Campbell. Plus, naturally, Neil Young. love Harry Nilsson,”
“When it comes to the guys I grew up listening to – Neil, The
Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan – no two songs sound
the same on their records,” he explains of his modus operandi.
“I’m always so confused when people say that my songs sound
so different from each other. To me it just sounds like rock’n’roll.
Back in the day, when I was trying to get a record deal, the labels would tell
me that it was too varied. But it all seemed cohesive to me.”
The new album features a diverse range of guests, from members of
Brooklyn quartet Lucius to Lady Gaga, Willie Nelson himself and, on piano,
Lukas’s Aunt Bobbie, now in her 80s. It’s the sextet’s fifth studio album, but
feels very much like a landmark. “I’ve got some new members in the band
and they’ve added a lot of space,” Lukas says. “And we’ve built it up a little
more, with a bigger sound. It’s a step up, for sure.”
This new-found authority is partly down to their recent
FOR FANS OF... collaboration with one of their heroes. In 2015, having been
impressed by their performance at Farm Aid, Neil Young
enlisted Promise Of The Real to back him on The Monsanto Years.
Immediately afterwards, they became his touring band.
“Sometimes you play golf with somebody who’s much better
than you are and you start to get this surge of confidence and
play better,” says Nelson. “That’s what it was like with Neil.
“Neil Young has There’s a mutual respect there, and we’ve learned so much just
released so many
records that have from the way he keeps a constant focus on his music and his art.”
influenced me, but I also Nelson also reveals that there’s a new Young/POTR album
on the way soon. “It’s a studio record, and the songs are so
says Lukas Nelson. positive,” he says. “There’s a lot of love in there, it’s uplifting
“I think he’s one of the
greatest singers in the and it’s quite a departure from The Monsanto Years. I think it’s
whole of rock’n’roll. He going to blow people’s minds.” RH
did an amazing version
of The Beatles’ Mother
Nature’s Son on Harry Lukas Nelson & Promise Of The Real is out now via Fantasy.
[1969], and his style
of production is just
so beautiful too.” CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 19
 Led Zeppelin’s record
label, Warner Music
Group, are said to be
planning a “series of
high-profile events”
in 2018 to celebrate
the band’s 50th
anniversary, one of
which is the erection
of a statue of John
Bonham in his
home town during
the year of what
would have been
the late drummer’s
70th birthday.
Riches from the Steven Wilson has
rock underground added a third night at
London’s Royal Albert

MORLY GREY
Hall, on March 29.

Roger Waters will

H.e.a.t
The Only Truth, 1972, Starshine, USA.
bring his Us + Them
tour to Europe in 2018.
The Swedish band return with a fifth album and a new
£700+ The former Pink Floyd sound that has so far provoked some fiery reactions...
man has already
Responsible for one announced six dates
of the better locally in Germany and early on h.e.a.t were fêted as melodic Society or Eye Of The Storm.
released US heavy- Austria for next May rock’s great white hopes. Serving to Yeah it would, but the way we look at
psych LPs of the and June and is set enhance the extremes of the band’s sound, things, nobody remembers a coward.
early 70s, Morly to announce shows the addition of Swedish Idol winner Erik
Grey formed in in several other Grönwall changed all that. As the On the Facebook page you’ve almost
Alliance, Ohio by territories, including Stockholm-based quintet release their fifth stoked those fires. It’s like you’re
brothers Tim Roller the UK. album, Into The Great Unknown, Grönwall enjoying the controversy.
(guitars) and Mark reveals why they are unfazed by the internet Well, in a way we do. One of the things that
Roller (bass, lead vocals). Initially a four- Bassist Paul Gray is shitstorm caused by its poppier sound. I like most about social media is that the
piece, they released a single on their own back in The Damned fans can speak their mind, and we get to
label in 1969, before stripping down to a as successor to the H.e.a.t disappeared for two years to answer them directly.
power trio, with two different drummers long-serving Stu West. make this album, which was a big risk
on each side. Limited to 1,000 copies, it The band are currently considering the way the band’s career What about the fan who said: “It’s
has rightly become a sought-after rarity. in New York with was taking off – even a shit song, but
Opening with Peace Officer, you’re given producer Tony in the UK. I still love H.e.at.
a good indication of what the rest of the Visconti, working on It was a scary decision Hopefully this will
album has to offer; essentially heavy but their eleventh album. but we needed some “I’ve nothing be your Kiss Dynasty
not all-out bludgeon, featuring West perspective. Had we moment”?
Coast vibes morphing into folk-rock and just made the record in against AOR, I’d I saw that [laughs]. But
progressive blues, with a vast array of between touring, [the we’re really not
acid guitar motifs. There appears to be music] wouldn’t have rather people think offended. I believe that
matured anywhere when people hear the
an element of Christianity in their general
near the way it did.
we play rock’n’roll.” whole album they’ll
message, though it’s hard to ascertain.
But it’s the 17 minute title-track, The Only understand.
Truth, which is the standout here. It Its first single, Time On Our Side, has
really set the cat among the pigeons. Circa the previous album, you said to
One fan dismissed it as “disco-synth”. Classic Rock that next time around:
‘Limited to 1,000 Is that a fair description? “We want to make the sound even
Mike Patton [Laughing] Yeah, absolutely. And we totally broader; the pop bits poppier and the
copies, it has rightly [pictured] says that expected those strong reactions but we’ve heavy bits even more colossal.”
become sought-after.’ Faith No More have
no immediate plans
always written the songs that we feel are
right for H.e.a.t. We also write according to
That’s exactly what we’ve done. We knew
the band had to change; that’s inevitable.
to work again. The our influences and those have changed a bit.
features some truly in your face hard-rock singer told a radio It took me ten spins to understand this H.e.a.t have been hailed as the
action, with atmospheric moves and interviewer: “We’re album, so for fans it will take even longer. figureheads of a genre that some felt
mesmerising guitar dream sequences. kind of on an extended was on its last legs. Is that why you
Not long after this release, Morly Grey break, and if Can you swear that making this had to get out?
changed their name to The Roller Bros something happens record was about pure artistic If you were to psychoanalyse me, that
band, releasing a more commercial again then it’ll happen growth, or were managers and label might have something to do with it but I
sounding album the next year. organically and staff saying the band should break have nothing against AOR, I’d rather
The brothers continued to play locally naturally, but I kind of into a new, younger market? people think that we play rock’n’roll.
up until recent times, recording another don’t think it will.” It was nothing like that. It turned out the
Morly Grey album during the mid-90s, way it did because we spent some time apart How did the down-time affect your
yet to see the light of day. Don’t hold your breath and got into other types of music. For dreams of rock stardom?
The Only Truth is a very accomplished for a new solo album instance, Jimmy [Jay, bassist] has got into We are hungrier than ever and cannot
musical work, which should have had a from Ozzy Osbourne bands like Muse and Imagine Dragons. wait to begin touring again. This band is
H.E.A.T: KLARA FOWLER

bigger audience. A proclamation on the – it could be a long even more dedicated than ever. DL
back sleeve states: “This record was wait. “I would like to It would have been more sensible to
specifically recorded to be played at do another record, but return with a traditionally Into The Great Unknown is out now via
a high volume”. Amen to that. LD it’s wasting money,” H.e.a.t-sounding song like Bastard Of earMUSIC.
says the singer.
20 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM “Nobody’s buying.”
Time To Celebrate
Swiss watchmakers pay tribute to an iconic American guitar.
When legendary guitar makers
Gibson and acclaimed Swiss watchmakers
Raymond Weil get together to celebrate
arguably the most iconic guitar that has
ever been produced, you know instinctively
that the result is not going to be something
akin to what you might get when Gene
Simmons comes up with yet another
‘memorabilia’ idea, or a wristwatch with
a cute picture of Mickey Mouse that you
might find in a Disney shop.
With the Freelancer, Ramond Weil pay
their respects to a legend with a wristwatch
that is “elegant, with a touch of rebellion,
and embodies its free spirit”. That’s what
they say. What we say is that they’ve come
up with a stunning timepiece that we agree
is elegant, and is also striking, beautiful and,
to use a phrase that this column is quite
fond of, reassuringly expensive.
The body of the 43.5 mm case is made of
steel and its tachymeter bezel is enhanced
with black PVD inspired by the lacquer on
the Gibson Black Beauty guitar. The board
has a circular guilloché motif featuring
six chords studded by fret-shaped hour
markers. At 12 o’clock are the names of
the famous guitar manufacturer and the GETTY
legendary Les Paul signature, and a split-
diamond inlay – a distinctive feature of the
Les Paul Custom guitar – sits next to the
LES LEGEND
The Les Paul has gone way beyond being just
date window. All of which is attached to a guitar.
your wrist by an ebony calf leather strap.
If you’re going to celebrate a guitar, then
Mention the word ‘battery’ in such the Gibson Les Paul
is going to be top of most people’s lists
esteemed company and you’ll get raised for the honour.
Invented/developed by the guitarist and
eyebrows and a sharp intake of breath. This inventor whose
model name it bears, and launched by
watch has a self-winding movement that Gibson in 1952, it
went on to be restyled in many different
variations (Standard,
ensures an approximately 46-hour power Custom, Junior, Studio, Special) and was/
is used by the
reserve for all but the most sloth-like wearer. majority of the greatest rock guitarists
ever to strike a power
This collector’s model is issued in a 300- chord. When it was first teamed with a
Marshall amp in the
piece limited numbered edition, and comes late 60s, notably by Eric Clapton, the soun
d – which most
people first heard on John Mayall’s 1966
in an exclusive presentation box inspired by album Bluesbreakers
With Eric Clapton (aka The Beano) album
the famous Gibson guitar cases. – almost overnight
became the Holy Grail for rock guitarists.
If we could afford it, we’d have one – on Clapton, Paul Kossoff (pictured), Slash, Joe
Bonamassa, Peter
each hand! Green, Jeff Beck, Duane Allman, Randy
Rhoads, Gary Moore
£2,895, from Raymond-weil.com and Billy Gibbons are just a few of the legion
of guitar legends
whose main guitar was or is the now truly
iconic Les Paul.
Paul Henderson
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 21

This month, @jamiehibbard is
elegantly wasted in these three
sartorial stand-outs.
Red Wing X Eat Dust Pecos
cowboy boot
When two uber-cool labels decide to
get together, it always piques our
interest at SDM. But when those two
labels are the purveyors of great
boots, Red Wing, and Dutch denim
house Eat Dust, we lose our mind a
little bit more! Here they’ve come
together to produce ED’s favourite
silhouette, the Pecos cowboy boot,
available only in red and in the UK
only at the London Red Wing store.
£315, @RedWingHeritage
Red Wing Store, London.
Needles Rebuild 7 Cut Rock tee
Ok stick with us on this one… Needles
are an eccentric Japanese label who
take seven different fabrics to create
a unique rock band shirt – no two are
the same. Bands covered are some of
Needles’ favourites, such as the
Rolling Stones, AC/DC and Slipknot.
£115 @EndClothing
EndClothing.com
Penfield Thurman bomber jacket
Well that summer didn’t come to
much in the end, did it? What you
need now is a good, go anywhere, do
anything jacket. You can’t go wrong
with a bomber, and this is just that.
£115 @PenfieldUSA
Penfield.com
22 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Yes, who play a 50th
anniversary tour next
year, have cancelled
the remaining dates
on their North
American Yestival tour
following the
unexpected death of
Virgil Howe, the son of
guitarist Steve Howe.
The Amorettes play
a special charity
concert at The
Tolbooth in Stirling on
November 3, in aid of
the Strathcarron
Hospice. On their only
headlining show of
2017, support comes
from Edinburgh’s
The Rising Souls. Gentle Giant
According to Ian
Gillan, Ritchie
The prog band from yesteryear have had tracks remixed
Blackmore will not be by Steven Wilson and there could be more on the way.
returning to Deep
Purple in any capacity
– including a one-off Formed from the ashes of psych-pop How close did Elton John, who played
show, an idea mooted hitmakers Simon Dupree And The Big keyboards for Simon Dupree, come to
by The Man In Black Sound in 1970, Gentle Giant were the joining Gentle Giant?
himself. Despite quintessential prog band, fusing soul, jazz, He was serious about it. We’d told him that
stating “there’s no rock and classical music into a complex we were going to dissolve Simon Dupree
great animosity any whole. Lack of commercial success failed and do something new. He said he’d like to
more”, the singer to deter them, with the band surviving for be a part of it, even though he was trying
comments: “Ian Paice a decade before splitting up. Major fan something on his own. In fact, myself and
puts it best: why Steven Wilson has now remixed selected Ray [Shulman] went up to Watford with
would I go back to tracks for the sumptuous Three Piece Suite. him, just as he met Bernie [Taupin] for the
that misery again?” Founder member and lead vocalist Derek first time. So he wasn’t begging for a job,
Shulman, one of three brothers in Gentle but he was auditioning, for sure.
As this issue went to Giant, explains all…
press Evanescence How did the band
announced a series of How did Three Piece function with three
orchestral shows. Suite come about? brothers?
They play London Steven’s worked on “Elton John It was archetypal sibling
Royal Festival Hall our stuff before and rivalry. Phil and I used
March 30/31, suggested doing songs said he’d like to to be at each other’s
Manchester Apollo from the first three throats with Ray as
April 2, Nottingham albums. Going back be a part of peacemaker. The other
Arena 3, Glasgow into the vaults members used to hide.
Armadillo 5 and brought back the Gentle Giant.” We toured extensively
Sheffield City Hall 6. magic of that period. with Jethro Tull and Ian
The US band’s fourth We were growing up as musicians at a Anderson remembers going into our
album, Synthesis, is out time when it felt like everything was dressing room after one show and walking
on November 10. possible. back out immediately, because we were
having such a loud argument about who’d
Gentle Giant once stated that you played a bum note. He thought we were
deliberately avoided being going to start throwing chairs at each other.
commercial…
That was actually a quote by my brother Anything else on the horizon?
Phil, who’s always been full of satire, We’re looking at remixing Free Hand [1975],
cynicism and irony. Yet there was also with a couple of out-takes. And there’s
a millstone around our necks because we’d a 20-album box set of live shows coming
had a big pop hit as Simon Dupree [1967’s next year. The albums were sketches for the
Kites]. And we were bagged as a prog band. live gigs, which offered something
In truth, we wanted to have as many fans completely different to the studio songs.
The 50th anniversary as we could.
of Ten Years After Will Gentle Giant ever reunite?
(pictured) is being How important was producer Tony No. Trying to recreate something we did
commemorated with Visconti in your early days? decades ago wouldn’t make sense to any of
a 10-CD boxed set, Tony was incredible on the first couple of us. You can’t rewrite history and one thing
released on November albums. He was a teacher too. We didn’t I’d never want to be is a parody of myself.
10 via Chrysalis. have any money to stay in London while The band was never about cash or a quick
Limited to 1,500 we were recording, so he allowed us to killing. Being paupers and enjoying our
copies, The Albums sleep on his floor in Putney. It was music was much better for us. RH
1967-1974 brings fascinating being around him at the same
together the group’s time that he was working with people like Three Piece Suite is out now via Soulfood
first nine records plus Bowie and T.Rex. and is reviewed on page 93.
a disc of previously
unreleased material.

Gold Key
Say what you want about these Floyd-loving
punk/metalheads, just don’t use the word ‘prog’.
Even if you don’t know about Gold Key themselves yet, you might be
aware of some of the members’ ‘day job’ bands: guitarist Laurent ‘Lags’
Barnard is the driving force behind hardcore punks Gallows, whom vocalist
Steve Sears also produces, while bassist Jack Leach arrives via extreme
math-metallers Sikth.
So for this heavily tattooed assemblage to record Hello Phantom,
an album of intriguing yet ultimately accessible melodious rock –
with audible traces of time spent listening to Pink Floyd, QOTSA,
Muse, even Radiohead – you’d think it represents something of
a left turn. Not so, apparently.
“I’ve always been into making music that keeps you on your
toes, so it’s not really a change,” Sears insists. “I’m not interested in
churning out the same records. Gallows could have made the last
two albums just like people wanted them to sound, but they’ve
never been into doing that. We’ve always wanted to push ourselves. “David Gilmour has one why it was such a good gig.”
“So with Gold Key we made a conscious decision not to look at
what our contemporaries in punk and hardcore were doing. Yeah,
there are definitely some influences, like Pink Floyd. We’ve got
acoustic songs that sound like Steely Dan, and people have thrown that he uses on that
DEREK BREMNER
the ‘prog’ word around quite a lot. For me that’s tough, because
from my background I still think of it as a bit of a dirty word.”
“We made a conscious
decision not to look at what
our contemporaries in punk
and hardcore were doing.”
Apart from keeping his punk cred intact, an extra issue for Sears has
come from stepping out from behind the mixing desk and getting in front
of the mic. “That hasn’t affected mine and Lags’s relationship, cos we know
how each other works,” he points out. “It’s more of a ball-ache for me. I’m
now involved in every different part of the process! For a control freak, it
sounds like a dream, but you lose vision, and it’s really hard to hold on to
that initial feeling if you’re recording it, mixing it, mastering it, writing it,
demoing it and singing it.”
Recording the album was quick. “We’d do a song a day – we
FOR FANS OF... would just work it out until we were happy with it,” Sears says.
More problematic have been preconceptions. The band were
so apprehensive about being prejudged that they made their live
debut at a festival in Tenerife, of all places.
“In the end that was an incredible experience, not least because
it almost didn’t happen. A tropical storm was forecast that would
have rained the whole thing off. So we all got really drunk, only to
“We all totally love be told that the storm has passed and the gig was back on. By that
The Dark Side Of The
Moon,” says Sears. point we were definitely more than half-cut. But maybe that was
of the most iconic guitar ‘Drink more and worry less’ would appear to the lesson to be
sounds. His use of space drawn there. “We’ll just have to see if the fans of our other bands
and atmosphere and
the effects and delays embrace it,” Sears concludes. “I just hope that people think it’s
different and give it a chance.” WS
album, that’s a hundred
per cent an influence.
My dad’s favourite Hello Phantom is out on October 27 via Venn Records.
band was Pink Floyd,
so I guess it seeped into
my brain somehow.” CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 23
 Heavy Rotation What we’ve been listening to this month

1 Collide
Black Country Communion
Back in business again, this ‘supergroup’ have never sounded more cohesive. One
of her voice. There’s drama and empathy, as Seviour
opens up her soul here in a way she has never has before.

of the cornerstone songs on the album BCCIV, it sees Glenn Hughes’s vocals neatly
complementing Joe Bonamassa’s powerful guitar work. Or is it the other way round?
Whatever, there’s an unmistakable charisma that makes it a stand-out celebration.
10 Going, Going, Gone
The Professionals
Punctuating an immense and relentless high-calibre rhythmic assault with tooth-
loosening, punchy solos, this is exactly what you’d expect of any track featuring

2 She’s Got To Be Somewhere

David Crosby
Seventy-six-year old David Crosby’s career renaissance continues apace with his
Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Billy Duffy. Going, Going, Gone – a paean to the joys of
the nicked guitar – finds Cookie’s reborn Professionals in blinding form.

third post-CSN album release. This track, Sky Trails’ smooth-as-silk opener, marries
the effortless slickness of Steely Dan with the punchy brass of Chicago, as Crosby’s
characteristically ageless vocal chills your spiritual chardonnay while oozing class.
11 Tin Foil Hat
Todd Rundgren feat. Donald Fagen
A recommendation from David Crosby, who promises you’ll “laugh like a fool”,
Tin Foil Hat finds the venerable Rundgren taking a beautifully observed pop at

3 Stand By My Girl
Dan Auerbach
Black Keys man (and collaborator with many) Dan Auerbach has a new solo album,
a mystery figure with ‘tiny little hands’ who’s apparently ‘tweeting like a teenage
girl’, whoever that could be. Controversial, yet candy-coated by Steely Dan man
Fagen’s trademark honeyed vocal tones.
Waiting On A Song, from which this super-catchy ode to a murderous housewife is
taken (hop on to YouTube to check out the video. It’s a hoot). Think southern soul
with slick pop-rock sensibilities. 12 Sacred Horse Enslaved
Once the masters of the Norwegian extreme metal scene, Enslaved have moved

4 Bondurant Women
The Texas Gentlemen
Lush piece of 70s-ish southern goodness (plus added seaside-friendly warmth)
increasingly towards a more progressive sound over the past several years. This
track, from the album E, continues the journey. Intricate, envelopingly atmospheric
yet still with an edge, here’s Enslaved capturing a momentous spirit.
from a bunch of guys who originally got together as a backing band for singer-
songwriters, including Leon Bridges, Nikki Lane, Shakey Graves and many others.
Ones to watch out for. 13 Powderfinger
Neil Young
Recorded at Malibu’s Indigo Studios in intimate surroundings – Young

5 Nomad Death From Above

Toronto’s one-time ‘79 duo Death From Above weigh into their Outrage! Is Now
third album with this raging statement-of-intent riff monster that bulldozes from one
crescendo to the next. Part-firestorm, part maelstrom, some say it’s punk, but it’s got
Tony Iommi written through it like a stick of Brummie rock.
accompanying himself on acoustic guitar – and intended for ‘76 release,
Powderfinger boasts a raw, untrammelled power beyond the reach of electricity.
Ultimately shelved, it was ear-marked for Ronnie-era Skynyrd until fate intervened.
14 Fast & Frightening
L7
With their ‘rags to riches to rags’ documentary Pretend We’re Dead rampaging over

6 Weakness
The Dust Coda
There are pleasing whiffs of Black Stone Cherry and Monster Truck – plus a load of
the horizon, what better time to recall Sparks, Finch, Gardner and Plakas at their red-
raw, ferocious peak. This war-painted, live-in-Finsbury Park B-side assault features
a wheelie-popping L7-alike heroine with ‘so much clit, she don’t need no balls’. Nice.
hearty soul – in this beefy, catchy highlight from London’s The Dust Coda. Keep an
eye out for the full, self-titled album, due for release on October 27.
15 Favourite Pleasures
Gun

7 The Seven
Primus
Always oddball, never conformist, Primus are engaging yet bizarre on this song from
The title track of the Scottish band’s new album, it has their trademark ability to
combine smooth hard rock with funk and a huge dollop of melody, but there’s
a freshness here that prevents it from being a mere throwback. This belongs in 2017,
new album The Desaturating Seven. It’s all based on a children’s story about goblins as Gun show how to balance respect for their past with a desire to be contemporary.
stealing the colours of the rainbow. Which is typical left-field stuff for this trio.

8 Rebel
Blitzen Trapper
16 Pimp The Tubes
They were an amazing, big-draw live band (headlining Knebworth ’78) back in the
Portland group Blitzen Trapper’s sunshiney-but-smart pop-rock acquires some dark day, but all the make-up, costumes and props would have meant jack shit had they
country overtones in this new track taken from upcoming album Wild And Reckless not also had some killer songs like this orchestrated, cinematic gem from Young And
(due on November 3). We loved their last album, 2015’s All Across This Land, so it’s Rich, one of the albums in their newly released collection The A&M Albums.
great to have them back.

9 Recovery Is Learning
Kim Seviour
17 Still Of The Night
Whitesnake
The opener of the just-released reissue of Whitesnake’s gold-plated 1987 album,
Once the voice of Touchstone, Kim Seviour is now out on her own – and she’s never and one of the best Led Zeppelin ‘tribute’ tracks ever recorded. It’s got the thumping
sounded more individual and passionate. Recovery Is Learning, the title track of her Dan Auerbach: riff, the unaccompanied vocal-wail verse, the Whole Lotta hi-hat-and-cymbal-pings
debut solo album, is haunting and expansive, bringing out the colour and timbre southern soul with slick mid-section breakdown, strings… Coverdale and co. rarely sounded as good.
pop-rock sensibilities.
REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

Hear the best new music EVERY DAY at classicrockmagazine.com

24 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
 THE
STO
RIES
BEH
IND
THE
SON
GS
The Cranberries
Zombie
The Irish band had already enjoyed success with their sweet ballads, but this storming left-turn,
an incendiary, furious track about the bombings in Northern Ireland, made them massive.
B
Words: y 1994, Limerick rock band
Emma Johnston
The Cranberries had achieved
international fame with their
chart-topping, multi-platinum
debut album Everybody Else Is Doing
It So Why Can’t We?, and most people
thought they knew exactly what the
Irish four-piece were about.
As the final days of grunge stormed
around them, they were a barefoot,
floaty, slightly hippie-ish oasis of calm,
the romantic longing of Linger and the
fairy tale sugar-rush of Dreams further
sweetened by singer Dolores O’Riordan’s
girlish, heavily accented vocal style.
Then in September, in the run-up to
the release of their second album, No Need
To Argue, they turned their own image
on its head by returning with Zombie,
a grungy, gloomy, furious anti-war song
that found O’Riordan raging against
the violence caused by the conflict in
Northern Ireland, which was making
the news headlines on what seemed like
a weekly basis.
On March 20, 1993, one of two bombs
was planted in a litter bin in Warrington
city centre by Irish republicans. When
ZOMBIE
REVISITED
it exploded, 12-year-old Tim Parry and
three-year-old Jonathan Ball were killed,
The Cranberries
revisited Zombie and dozens of people injured, in an attack
this year when they that shocked and appalled the public in
re-recorded an acoustic the UK and Ireland alike. When the news
version with the Irish
Chamber Orchestra for of the attack broke, The Cranberries were
the band’s reworked on tour in the UK, and O’Riordan was on
greatest hits collection the tour bus in London.
Something Else.
“We did it with “I remember at the time there were
a quartet, so it’s a lot a lot of bombs going off in London and
tamer but it’s still the Troubles were pretty bad,” she says
nice,” says O’Riordan. now, 24 years later. “I remember being
“It’s interesting to do
acoustic versions of on tour and being in the UK at the time
your songs because when the child died, and just being really
it kind of shows sad about it all. These bombs are going
that they can stand
acoustically as well: off in random places. It could have been
Is it a good song? anyone, you know?
Has it a good chorus? “It’s a tough thing to sing about, but
Has it a good verse?
Does it have a bridge? when you’re young you don’t think twice
“I think when you’re about things, you just grab it and do it. As
young you have you get older you develop more fear and
lots of aggression.
When you get older you get more apprehensive, but when
it kind of goes away, you’re young you’ve no fear.”
you get a bit more Zombie was written in a rare lull
laid-back. It was fun
to go back to it.” between tours; the band had spent the
majority of the year on the road in the
24 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
US, touring universities and arenas and
building up their brand. Rather than
being a collaborative effort, it was written
by O’Riordan alone, in the calm of her
own flat, and it began life as a much
gentler proposition than it ended up as.
“It was extremely busy and we were
working all the time around the clock,”
she says. “That song came to me when
I was in Limerick, and I wrote it initially
on an acoustic guitar, late at night.
I remember being in my flat, coming up
with the chorus, which was catchy and
anthemic. So I took it into rehearsals,
and I picked up the electric guitar. Then
I kicked in distortion on the chorus, and
I said to Ferg [Fergal Lawler, drums]:
‘Maybe you could beat the drums pretty
hard.’ Even though it was written on an
acoustic, it became a bit of a rocker.
“That was the most aggressive song
we’d written.
Zombie was quite
different to what
we’d done before.”
“It’s a tough thing to sing about,
It was recorded but when you’re young you don’t
in Dublin with
producer Stephen think twice about things, you
Street, who spent
a long time working
just grab it and do it. When
on getting the you’re young you’ve no fear.”
guitar settings
right to give a suitably expansive sound.
But while they were experimenting
with raising the volume, O’Riordan
says it wasn’t a concerted effort to ride
the grunge bandwagon.
“It came organically because we were
using our live instruments, we were
plugging in a lot, and we started to mess
around with feedback and distortion.
When you’re on tour you start to mess
around a bit more with the live side of
things. There were a lot of bands around
that were part of the grunge thing, and
this wasn’t grunge, but the timing was
good. We couldn’t have really fitted
in with grunge, because we were just
a different type of a band. We were Irish
and from Limerick, and we had a lot of
our own ideas. A lot of the grunge bands
were very similar to each other.”
Equally important to the success of
the track, released as a single, in the MTV
era was the accompanying video, in
which the singer was painted gold and
surrounded by silver-painted cherubs. It
was inter-cut with documentary footage
of soldiers and children on the streets
of Northern Ireland, filmed by director
Samuel Bayer, who also made the videos
for Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and
Blind Melon’s No Rain.
“I actually thought the director was
very brave,” says O’Riordan. “When he
got back, he was pretty pumped
– there was a lot of adrenalin pumping
through him. He was telling me how
tense it was and how he was blown away
by the whole thing. He got footage of
the kids jumping from one building to
another, and he got a lot of footage of
the army. He was a very good director.”
Released in 1994, Zombie went to
No.1 in several countries and on the
US rock chart (although it only made it
to No.14 in the UK), and was certified
platinum in Australia and Germany. At
the MTV Awards, the band beat Michael
Jackson and TLC to win Best Song. But
that paled into insignificance when
they were invited to perform it at the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1998, when Ulster
Unionist leader John Hume and SDLP
leader David Trimble were honoured “for
their efforts to find a peaceful solution to
the conflict in Northern Ireland”.
Parent album No Need To Argue went
on to sell 17 million copies, and made
O’Riordan very rich.
“I wouldn’t change anything about it,
because it did so well,” she says. “It was
well-written and it was well-composed.
I think it did so well because it’s hard to
categorise it. And I still like singing it.”
CAMERAPRESS
Something Else is out now on BMG.
 Tapping into the Troubles:
THE FACTS Zombie-era Cranberries.
RELEASE DATE
Sept 19, 1994
HIGHEST
CHART
POSITION
UK No.14
PERSONNEL
Dolores
O’Riordan
Vocals, guitar
Noel Hogan
Guitar
Mike Hogan
Bass
Fergal Lawler
Drums
WRITTEN BY
Dolores
O’Riordan
PRODUCER
Stephen Street
LABEL
Island

CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 25
 David Crosby
The former Byrd on protests and
politics, life and death and being
popular with the Pope.
Interview: Ian Fortnam
ith Crosby, Stills & Nash
on permanent hiatus,
David Crosby is enjoying
something of a solo career
renaissance. Obviously,
a formidable reputation
precedes him, so it shouldn’t really come as
any surprise that this co-founder of The Byrds,
who either wrote or co-wrote Eight Miles High,
Wooden Ships, Teach Your Children, Almost Cut My
Hair and many more is still capable of producing
exceptional work, especially in today’s early-60s-
echoing troubled times.
Nevertheless, it’s impressive that his three most
recent recordings, made in close collaboration
with his son James Raymond (2014’s Croz, last
year’s acoustic Lighthouse and his latest Sky Trails
album), sit comfortably alongside his very best.
Kicking back in his California home, Crosby
laughs loud and long when I observe that he
retains possession of a voice of such clarity
that women appear to find it impossible to
resist, spluttering: “Let that be the headline for
the piece, you silver-tongued devil. I want that
one out there!”
The Sky Trails song Capitol is laced with
a cynicism that seems to extend to politicians
of all political leanings. Is corruption an
essential element within all those who seek
political office, or only those who attain it?
Corruption’s endemic in politics. There are
exceptions. The law of averages – the law
I respect the most – tells me there are occasional
politicians who are honest and trying to serve the
people that elected them, but most are blatantly
corrupt. They’re pretty scummy people.
In the United States right now it’s as if we’re
a failed country. We’ve stopped being anything
other than a bad joke. If I come to Europe I’m
going to sew a maple leaf on my shoulder!
“The three hours I’m on stage is heaven
to me. It’s the other twenty-one hours
a day that beat the crap out of me.”
28 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
What do you make of the rise of the political
right in the wake of Donald Trump’s
ascendancy into presidential office?
It’s scary because it’s happening in a lot of places.
It’s happening in Poland, they tried to drag the UK
to the right, they tried it in France and Holland
without success. You see it a lot and it’s been
encouraged by the rise of right-wing fanaticism
in this country, which has been unquestionably
encouraged by this asshole we have for a President.
Please quote me!
Many of the songs with which you were
involved during the first decade of your career
are evocative of a time when change was
swift, protest achieved much in the field of
civil rights, the anti-war movement shortened
the Vietnam war and environmental concerns
were being voiced. The future looked
incredibly bright. So what went wrong?
The Democratic Party failed us. The Republican
Party stooped to levels even we, who felt them
capable of really awful stuff, couldn’t believe. The
problem in the United States always goes back
to money. Corporations spend billions of dollars
buying elections and own the people they gave the David Crosby: enjoying
a late-career purple patch.
money to. Then they call up and say: “Quarterly
report’s down, we need a nice little war. Why
don’t you send some people back to Afghanistan?” Do you think the optimism of the 1960s has
And that’s a very bad situation. The United States a place in today’s cynical society?
is, at best, in a lot of trouble. Yes. You need to have optimism and hope in order
to function. I have to, anyway. Okay, this guy’s
Do these troubled times add fuel to your fire? a terrible president and we’ve got terrible people
Do you find that you’re writing more? showing up doing awful things, but it’s making
I’m certainly trying to. I’ve been saying for a while us look at them. Racism was always here in the
that we need a song for our times. A song as strong United States of America. We just weren’t looking
as Ohio or We Shall Overcome. A song for our people at it. Now they are marching down the street with
out there in the street. And we don’t have it yet. I’m torches in their hands, and it’s real. It’s ugly and it’s
trying to write it myself, and trying to get anybody not fun, but America needs to look at this so we
else to write it. I don’t care where it comes from, can deal with it. We can’t deal with it if we pretend
I just care that there is one. it isn’t there.
During the early eighties you were in the grip
of a debilitating cocaine addiction. At that
point, freebasing seemed to have reached
epidemic proportions. Did its prevalence
within the rock community come in the wake
of the apparent death of sixties idealism?
I don’t know if they were linked, but certainly
the advance of the drug culture and the debauch
of idealism happened at roughly the same pace
and would seem to be connected. I don’t know if
you can prove the causality, but they’re definitely
connected. We didn’t know the drugs were going
to get us addicted, sap our will, ruin our lives, pick
up our families and destroy us, but it’s exactly
what they did. It happened at the same time our
leaders were getting shot – King, Kennedy. There
were a lot of factors in losing, or damaging, that
idealism, and drugs was only one of them.
Drugs messed us up and did great harm, and
we lost a lot of people to them, but I don’t think
it’s as simple as the one caused the other. There are
a whole multiplicity of variables there affecting it.
One event that’s emblematic of those
changing times was the assassination of
John Lennon, which compelled you to
arm yourself for self-preservation. It was
a decision that saw you fall foul of the law
more than once. Where do you stand now on
the right to bear arms?
I grew up in a different time. Where I grew up
we raised lemons and avocados, and when
you turned twelve years old you got a two-two
[rifle], and shooting rifles was just a part of how
everybody lived. It’s a completely different thing
to the gang-fuelled, ‘automatic weapons in their
back pockets’ approach to guns. The gun itself isn’t
the problem, the problem is in the operator.
Talking about trying to reduce gun ownership
in the United States, as they did in Australia, is just
nonsense, man, because two-thirds of households
in America have got guns and nobody’s gonna give
them back. You’re never going to get rid of them. It
doesn’t mean I approve of them. I’d love to live in
a world where we didn’t have to have them.
What did you discover about your fellow man
during the time you were incarcerated in 1983
for possessing drugs and a firearm?
I learned about racism. I’d met and worked with
black musicians who were some of the greatest
people on the planet. Odetta and Josh White
were my mentors, people I learnt how to be
a folk singer from. So I had this great picture of
who black people were.
Then I was suddenly in prison with people
who couldn’t read a comic book and had nothing
left but attitude. They were the bottom end of the
Texan prison system and not a good advertisement
for people of colour in this country. So I had to
wade through that and realise that, no, though
some people were pretty terrible, the full range
of people was also there. There were angels and
demons, and in any group of people bigger than
a hundred I was always going to find both. That
was a big lesson.
Five years for a quarter of a gram of pipe
residue seems like an awful lot of jail time.
Do you feel that the various agencies of law
enforcement already had their eye on you as
a representative of the counterculture and
that your position was reflected in the severity
of your sentence?
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 29
Q&A
“We didn’t know the drugs were going
to get us addicted, sap our will, ruin our
Crosby, Stephen Stills
and Graham Nash as lives… but it’s exactly what they did.”
CS&N in 1969.
Yeah, sure, they were trying to make an example.
I only did a year, but they were trying to make an
example. And probably rightly so.
And what did you discover about yourself
during the time you spent in jail?
I discovered myself again. When I woke up from
the long drug nightmare, I woke up in a prison
cell, and while it’s not a great place to wake up, at
least you wake up. And I discovered I could live
without the drug, which was something I didn’t
know. I thought I couldn’t.
I discovered I could manage my life there and
stay out of trouble long enough to survive day to
day. I learned that I could still write if I went back
to it. Because I had done drugs to the extent that
they’d wiped out my ability to write completely,
and I wasn’t even really awake as a human being.
Then I wake up in prison and start reading
again, start thinking again and started writing
again. That was the big joy, that the writing was
going to come back.
Do you write for specific projects as they
arise, or is writing an ongoing process?
I just write. I’m always picking up the guitar
to see where it’ll take me. When Joni Mitchell
and I were going together and I was producing
her first record, I said something to her and she
said: “Write that down.” And I said: “Write what
down?” “What you just said. It was something
good, and if you don’t write it down it didn’t
happen.” And that stuck in my head. Ever since
that day, if I get four words in a row that I like
I write them down.
30 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Prior to your liver transplant in 1994, when
you were first diagnosed with hepatitis C, the
prognosis looked pretty grim. How did you
react to your diagnosis?
I didn’t believe it. The first diagnosis was at
Johns Hopkins [an academic medical centre in
Baltimore] and I didn’t believe them. So I went
to UCLA, and they said: “Yeah, it’s absolutely
true, you have hepatitis C, your liver is very
close to failing. As a matter of fact, we were
going to give you a pager and send you home,
but we don’t think we could keep you alive at
home, so you’re checking into the hospital right
now. Seventy-two days in the hospital. It was
absolutely terrifying, man.
Crosby today: still
enjoying performing.
In 2010, If I Could Only Remember My Name
was voted the second-best album of all time
by L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official
newspaper. Did you have any idea that you
were quite so Pope-friendly?
No I didn’t! The next one on the list was Dark Side
Of The Moon, so I beat Pink Floyd. As soon as it
came out, I got an email from David Gilmour
saying: “Damn you, you bastard.” We laughed
about it a lot, thought it was funnier than shit.
There has to be somebody in The Vatican that’s got
really good taste in music, I guess. I’m a huge fan
of this Pope. He’s the best thing to happen to the
Catholic church in a thousand years. A fine human
being who, instead of just talking the talk, walks
the walk. I’m not Catholic, I’m not religious at all,
but I think he’s terrific.
You’re obviously a passionate man, driven
to distraction by injustice and corruption,
but you seem to find perfect peace in
performance. Do you find the process of
making music beneficial to your physical
and mental well-being?
Absolutely, man. Singing for me is a joy. Just as
war drags humanity downward, brings out the
very worst in humanity, music is a positive, lifting
force that brings out the best in us. I love singing.
It’s the other twenty-one hours a day that beat the
crap out of me – the bad food, no sleep and cheap
hotels. But the three hours I’m on stage with the
MAIN: ALAMY; INSET: GETTY
band, that’s heaven to me, man. I’m doing what
I was put here to do.
Sk y Trails is available now via BMG.
32 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
 Kadavar
Meet the animalistic Berliners who are writing
a soundtrack for these troubled times.
Words: Henry Yates Portrait: Joe Dilworth
It’s rare that a band seem like they’re
part of both the past and the future. An
encounter with Kadavar might feel like
tumbling through a wormhole to the early
70s, with the Berliners’ beards and tailoring
all period-correct, and their playbook in
thrall to Tony Iommi and Jimmy Page.
But dig into Rough Times, their fourth
album, and you’ll find this trio updating
stoner and psychedelic sounds while
dissecting the modern world.
“All the refugees,” frontman Christoph
‘Lupus’ Lindemann says with a sigh.
“All the war. And of course, in America,
I don’t understand how you can vote for
somebody who’s homophobic, anti-women,
anti-science, anti-anything. We kinda had
the feeling that the good times might be
over, so we called the album Rough Times.”
The album is a trip.
Since the band formed in 2010, the
boneheaded response has been to cast
Kadavar as a Sabbath throwback. But that
doesn’t square with their latest album,
which unfolds like a saga and sprinkles
eclectic influences. “It’s a journey,” Lupus
explains. “Because it starts really dark and
doomy, kinda Electric Wizard-style, like
we’re really pissed off. But then it clears up,
gets a little nicer, with this Neil Young vibe.
By the end it almost seems like there’s some
hope left. Not everything is black and the
end of the world.”
The world is their stage.
Lupus grew up in post-unification East
Berlin, but the shadow of The Wall looms
over Kadavar’s often-claustrophobic sound
and escapist world view. “My mother always
told me, whatever happens, when you’re old
enough, leave, just go,” he recalls. “Because
they never had the chance. There was the
Stasi, spies everywhere, Russian soldiers,
you couldn’t say what you were thinking. I’ve
always enjoyed that freedom. You come to
Mexico City, get on stage and see hundreds
of kids freaking out. That’s the moment
when all the pain makes sense.”
Their lyric sheet ain’t pretty.
A scan of the Rough Times track-listing
announces that Lupus is not from the
hearts-and-flowers school. “When I’m
happy and everything is good, I don’t feel
like writing songs. I need anger and hate,
to feel uncomfortable. Vampires is about my
generation: nobody knows what the future
is going to bring for us. Die Baby Die is about
the music business, people knocking on
your door, trying to make money out of you
– then those people move on and they don’t
give a fuck about your dream.”
Kadavar are having an identity crisis.
“One night, we were all at the bar and
decided we needed animal names,” recalls
Lupus. “Simon [Bouteloup, bass] became
‘Dragon’. Christoph [Bartelt, drums] was
‘Tiger’, and I took the Latin name for wolf,
‘Lupus’. But now we’re getting closer to our
animals. Tigers are lazy the whole day then
they go out for one big hunt – and Christoph
might hang out all day, but when he gets up
he’s serious. I’m getting more like a wolf,
lonely. I used to go out and get wasted, but
nowadays I stay home and write.”
Their face fuzz gets them into trouble.
Most upcoming bands can’t get arrested.
As Lupus recalls with a shudder, Kadavar
did – in Texas. “The cops stopped the car
because they said we were too fast. But it
definitely had something to do with the hair
and beards. They had guns pointed at us,
put us in a field for hours, blinding us with
spotlights, with dogs trying to find drugs.
Nobody has ever pulled a gun on me before.
That’s a feeling I never want to have again.”
They’ve got a split personality.
The stage Kadavar and the studio Kadavar,
Lupus reminds us, are two different beasts.
“People say our records never really catch
the energy we have on stage. We are way
more brutal, heavy and dirty live. Of course,
you want to blow people away, so you do it
as fat and big as you can, but we never try to
have that on the records. We are not really
fans of big, fat production. Maybe we have
two identities. But on the new album, I think
we’ve caught both of them.”
Rough Times is out now via Nuclear Blast.
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 33
 The Blues Years
From 1967 to 1974, the nascent Fleetwood Mac teetered on the line between triumph and
oblivion. Co-founder Mick Fleetwood recalls the “wild story” of the band’s early years…
Words: Henry Yates
I
t was the fag-end of summer 1967, and the tectonic plates of
London’s blues landscape were shifting. On September 9, under
cover of darkness, the door of Decca Studios in London opened and
house producer Mike Vernon furtively waved in a fledgling band for
an after-hours session. There was Mick Fleetwood, the drummer
recently ousted from John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers for being habitually
“loose as a goose”. With him were bassist Bob Brunning and an impish,
mischief-making slide-guitar wizard named Jeremy Spencer. More
auspiciously, there was Peter Green, the spellbinding guitar hero who had
replaced Eric Clapton in the Bluesbreakers, and arguably outshone him in
his tenure with Mayall, and was now widely tipped to explode.
“People were almost forcing Peter to form a band,” remembers
Fleetwood, a full half-century later, in an interview to promote Love That
Burns, a mouth-watering new book that chronicles the band’s early years.
“So I think eventually he basically went: ‘Okay, fuck it.’”
To fair-weather fans of the stadium-filling Rumours line-up of
Fleetwood Mac, that original line-up is either a mystery or
a mere preamble to the main event.
“The main story is always going to be the
Fleetwood Mac that you know now,” Fleetwood
concedes. “No doubt, what’s going to be
remembered is the incarnation that’s not in this
“I hope that part of
book; y’know, Stevie [Nicks], Lindsey [Buckingham], our story is about
Chris [McVie], John [McVie, who had soon replaced
Brunning] and myself. But I wanted this book to be acceptance of people
about the band that Peter Green started in 1967, and
I was lucky and happy enough to be at his side, right
who have come
from the beginning. through the ranks,
“I want people to know what started Fleetwood
Mac. Well, first of all it was Peter. And a bunch of kids which has allowed
that were channelling our heroes. We were listening this crazy story.”
to blues artists that were freaking us out. The irony is
that these funny little English dudes reconstituted an Mick Fleetwood
art form that was all but dead – and nobody gave
a shit about it in America – and served it back to
them. We helped to save something that was all but
thrown in the dustbin.”
Across the decades, all parties have credited Green as the
catalyst behind the original band’s formation. Spencer remembers
being press-ganged by him at a Birmingham show in June 1967 (“He asked
if I wanted a drink, and as we stood by the bar he talked as though I was
already in it”). In Love That Burns, meanwhile, McVie recalls the badgering
that made him turn his back on a steady Bluesbreakers pay cheque (“Peter
was bugging me, you know: ‘Come on, join, join, you gotta join!’”).
While interviewing Green for the book, Fleetwood was surprised to
learn that his own invitation to join was largely down to the sympathy
vote: “I thought he was going to say: ‘Well, I thought you were a pretty
good drummer.’ But he said: ‘You’d just broken up with Jenny [Boyd, later
Fleetwood’s first wife] and you were devastated, and I just thought you
needed to do something. That’s why I asked you to join the band, because
I just wanted you to get back on your feet.’ How amazing was that? It really
had nothing to do with whether I was a halfway decent drummer or not, it
was just because he loved me and he didn’t want to see me in pain.”
34 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
In his own testimony for Love That Burns, meanwhile, Green writes:
“Fleetwood Mac was a bit of an experiment to begin with. I wouldn’t have
been surprised if it had flopped. The way the line-up came together had
a lot to do with fate.”
Maybe so, but it was chemistry that drove it. A proto-Fleetwood Mac –
at that point with Brunning on bass – had already played their debut gig, at
the Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival in August 1967. Later that year, as the
McVie-bolstered line-up hit the London club scene, a fascinating dynamic
was in evidence. Both on stage and when hassling promoters off it, the
East End-raised Green was patently in charge.
“I would parody Peter when he would slip into that tough barrow-boy
thing when he couldn’t take us any more,” notes Fleetwood. “We would
mimic him and it became a running joke: ‘Get your fucking shit together.
You both played like shit! Fleetwood, I’ve got more swing in my left
bollock than you had tonight!’”
On the flip side, bandleader Green’s economical guitar playing
style and musical generosity gave space for his bandmates
to shine, his priority always the interplay, not the
individual showboating.
“It was incredible in those days,” notes McVie.
“Mick and I behind Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer,
it was like a fucking freight train. It’s nothing that
includes massive amounts of technical skill, it’s just
chemistry that works.”
“It was all about friendship,” picks up Fleetwood.
“Peter gave me confidence. I play from the heart.
I don’t know what I’m doing half the time. And he
told me: ‘Mick, you’re okay, just play.’ Peter was the
consummate team player. Later, in an interview,
someone asked him why did he call the band
Fleetwood Mac? And he said: ‘Well, in truth, I thought
at some time I’d probably move on, and I wanted John
and Mick to have something after I left.’
“Peter gave and he gave,” Fleetwood continues.
“I was looking at the set-list for the Windsor Jazz
Festival. And remember that Peter had become a sort
of Eric Clapton hero-worshipped player on the scene. He
basically turned around and gave it all away to Jeremy. [That
show] is a lot of Jeremy. That’s really a very generous person.”
The magnanimous Green was not only happy to feature Spencer’s note-
perfect Elmore James homages in the set, he also even indulged Spencer’s
on stage antics, which included cavorting in a gold lamé jumpsuit with a
red dildo lolling from the gusset (a routine that saw them briefly banned
from The Marquee). Spencer recalled: “Peter said that I was the first player
to make him smile since Hendrix.”
T
he logical next step was a debut album. In November 1967, a three-
day stint at CBS studios resulted in the self-titled LP known
informally as Dog And Dustbin, a Brit-blues master class that
pinballed from soul-drenched Green originals like Looking For Somebody
and I Loved Another Woman to Spencer’s trademark olde-blues salutes.
BARRY PLUMMER
“That was a blues album,” Fleetwood says. “Y’know, this is what we do.
The irony was, we were on Top Of The Pops and they probably felt we
Fleetwood Mac: (clockwise from
top left) Mick Fleetwood,
Peter Green, John McVie, Danny
Kirwen and Jeremy Spencer.
 Singing the blues: Danny
Kirwan, Peter Green and John
McVie in the studio in 1969/70.

invented that music. A lot of people who were not our audience were a precocious and chronically shy guitarist named Danny Kirwan joined
suddenly listening to Elmore James. It really holds up, when you listen to the band. Fleetwood recalls a teenager who “one might have mistaken for
some of that early stuff. I mean, Peter was such an extraordinary player, so an innocent church choirboy… but he would play the hell out of his
sensitive and so mature. guitar, deep in the trenches of the darkest grooves”.
“The thing about London and a lot of bands in that particular Indeed it was Kirwan’s diverse influences and off-kilter style that
period,” the drummer continues, “is that, in our own way, we helped Fleetwood Mac to their first hit singles – and the
were real blues bands. London was a cauldron of broad-minded and more textural tracks on 1969’s Then
creativity which, I might add, is still being felt Play On album.
musically, sociologically, in fashion “It was thrilling to see them go from nothing more
and style. It caused all these ripples than a twelve-bar blues band to making records as
that became waves and storms and “Jeremy was creative as Albatross and Black Magic Woman,” recalls
hurricanes of creativity. I don’t
think it’s pushing the envelope for
vulnerable, ripe for Vernon. “The catalyst for the change was Danny.
There were no bands anywhere that had three
someone such as me, sitting back the picking, because guitar players, and it diversified the whole sound of
and saying [mock-nostalgic]: ‘Oh, the group.”
in the old days, do you know what
he always had a Bible On first inspection, as a dreamy guitar
we did?’ There are just things that sewn into his duffle instrumental with the vibe set to ‘mellow’, their 1968
happen in certain places. It’s like single Albatross was a hard sell, Fleetwood
when people talk about Paris in coat and he was acknowledging that it was “a little light in the
the twenties.”
But even as that debut album hit
already flipping out loafers” for the band’s blues hard-core followers.
“Everyone at CBS, our distributor, said: ‘We’ll never
No.4 in the UK shortly after its from the drugs.” be able to sell this, no radio station’s ever gonna play
release in February 1968 there was it,’” notes Vernon. “But Peter just kept telling us it
a taste of trouble to come, when Mick Fleetwood was going to be a hit. Eventually, after hearing it
Green baulked at the band’s billing enough times, we all agreed.”
on the sleeve as ‘Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac’. Green’s instincts were on the money. After the
“He was furious about that,” Fleetwood recalls. “They band performed Albatross on prime-time BBC, the single
snuck it in there, because [Peter] was the only person that began shifting 60,000 units daily on its march to No.1 in
was beginning to be quite famous on the blues circuit. And I don’t the UK. Green’s chiming Man Of The World and ambitious Oh Well
blame them. But that was the last time you ever saw Peter Green’s name in weren’t far behind, both singles hitting No.2 in 1969. That year’s Then Play
front of Fleetwood Mac.” On album, which saw Green expand his palette with songs inspired by
Follow-up Mr Wonderful could only repeat the debut album’s trick with hearing classical composer Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending at the
diminishing returns, but the line-up was revitalised that summer when Proms, reached No.6.
ALAMY

36 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

“I don’t really know
“The world was unfolding for him,” notes why I left the group
Fleetwood. “One can only imagine what he’d have
created if he had continued on that track.” in the end. I think it
Rather less high-minded was Green’s Rattlesnake
Shake, written about Mick Fleetwood masturbating.
was just because
Capping off a breakthrough year, there was also I wanted to do
the release of Blues Jam At Chess, showcasing the line-
up as they cut heads with the genre’s big beasts in things for free.”
Chicago, including Buddy Guy, Willie Dixon and Peter Green
Shakey Horton. Inspect the photos in Love That Burns
and the Mac members are certainly wide-eyed,
although the respect reportedly ran both ways, with
MICK FLEETWOOD: MICHAEL PUTLAND; JEREMY SPENCER & J..T. BROWN: JEREMY SPENCER COLLECTION; PETER GREEN: JEFF LOWENTHAL
JT Brown, formerly of the Elmore James band, noting of
Spencer: “Hell, it’s like Elmore has been dug up from the
L
grave. I’m closing my eyes and hearing my boss singing.”
Such triumphs couldn’t mask a sour taste and the sense of an ending,
however. After the band had set out on producer Mike Vernon’s then-new
blues label Blue Horizon, manager Clifford Davis had swooped to move
his charges to the Immediate label (thence to Warner Brothers/Reprise).
“When Fleetwood Mac left us,” noted Vernon, “the thing that upset me
more than anything was the idea that our family unit was being destroyed.
And it was being destroyed for reasons of commerciality.”
F
or his part, Spencer had felt adrift since Kirwan’s arrival, and he
released his first solo album in 1970. Most troubling of all was the
decline of Green. Plainly, this was a man fast unravelling. He gave
befuddled interviews in which he spoke of plans to give away the band’s
money, took to wearing messianic robes and sprinkled cries for help
across lyrics for songs such as Man Of The World (‘I just wish that I’d never been
born’) and Love That Burns (‘Please leave me now in my room to cry’).
Green’s ominous final contribution, The Green Manalishi (With The Two-
Prong Crown), felt more troubled still, its lyric addressing a nightmarish
character that surely represented the guitarist’s struggle to reconcile his
Fleetwood, Green and Spencer with
JT Brown, recording the Blues Jam
At Chess album in 1969.
tough upbringing and his rock-star status, not to
mention the pressure to maintain the band’s
commercial ascent.
“The burden of our success haunted him,” notes
Fleetwood. “Peter thought it was all bullshit and was
convinced that people never really liked him. This
took him to the brink and it ultimately made him
unable to handle normal life.”
As the band hit the road in early
1970, Fleetwood watched his friend
across the aisle of the tour bus,
waited and hoped.
“There are some pictures in the
book that of course are very personal,” he
recalls. “I remember the exact moment. There’s
some pictures of Peter on that last tour, and I remember
how it felt. I was sitting on that bus and I was looking at
him and thinking: ‘Maybe he’ll change his mind. Maybe
he won’t leave.’”
The cautionary tale of Green’s ignominious burnout
is well-known now, the tipping point generally
acknowledged to be the day at a Munich hippie commune
when his already fragile mind-set was shredded by LSD.
Interviewed for Fleetwood’s book, he can only express
bewilderment at his actions: “I don’t really know why
I left the group in the end. I think it was just because I wanted to do things
for free. I knew that people looked at me like I was in a dream. I could tell
that, even at the time.”
“We were devastated,” Fleetwood says today. “Losing Peter Green was
devastating. It was like, it’s probably over. My instinct was to keep going.
Because what else are we going to do? The band’s called Fleetwood Mac,
and really, we were experiencing the very thing that Peter thought would
happen. So at least we had something.
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 37

“And I have to say, the lesson learnt there was that once we had survived
that most devastating thing, every time someone left, because we’d
survived Peter we thought we could probably get through.”
Desertion was in the air. Spencer was “gloomy” and despondent. McVie
talked vaguely of ditching the bass and managing the band
instead. For Fleetwood, the only way forward was to start afresh,
the drummer leading the reeling lineup to shared quarters in Kiln
House, “a frugal, artsy farmhouse” in Hampshire, where days
were spent rehearsing new material and nights smoking hash.
“We closed ranks,” he reflects. “We went to Kiln House and did
the band-in-the-country-cottage thing that Traffic and Led
Zeppelin had done. Y’know, go to the country and lick your
wounds. We were very shaky.”
Slowly, the music began again. But when the Kiln House album
emerged in September 1970, it was a curious beast, mostly driven
by Kirwan’s rockier leanings and Spencer’s 1950s pastiches, and it
was perhaps lucky even to reach No.39 in the UK.
“We made that very unusual, charming little album,” reflects
Fleetwood, “where Jeremy was in a world with Danny. But they
weren’t prepared without our big leader. Jeremy just retreated to
making his Buddy Holly-esque songs. It’s sort of a cool little
album, but we were floundering.”
New faces helped heal the wounds. Christine Perfect had
moved in the band’s orbit since the start, catching McVie’s eye as
she played keys with Chicken Shack at that Windsor festival in
1967. The pair dated, then married in 1968. She played piano on
the Mr Wonderful, Then Play On and Kiln House albums, before
officially becoming a member of Fleetwood Mac at a New
Orleans gig in August 1970.
Even then, the revolving door continued to turn. In February
1971 the band’s US tour was derailed when Spencer walked off
down Hollywood Boulevard – ostensibly to visit a ‘head’, or drug
38 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Clockwise from top left: Dave
Walker and the equally short-lived
Bob Weston, “major player” Bob
Welch, John and Christine McVie.
paraphernalia, shop – and never returned. The mystery was only solved,
Fleetwood notes, when he was found sworn in to a religious group known
as the Children Of God. “Jeremy was vulnerable, ripe for the picking,
because he always had a Bible sewn into his duffle coat and he was already
flipping out from the drugs.”
Having already cancelled a gig at LA’s Whisky A Go Go, the only
recourse was to recall Peter Green, although his refusal to play the
hits and insistence on free-form jamming meant this could never
be a permanent solution. Relative consistency arrived only in the
form of guitarist Bob Welch, the Californian-born musician whose
jazz-inflected contribution to the next five albums – including
major US hits such as Hypnotized – deserves higher billing. “Bob was
a major part of this band after Peter left,” Fleetwood says. “[But] in
Europe, people don’t actually know a lot about him.”
The band’s new digs also contributed to the sense of stability.
Costing just £23,000, Benifolds was a sprawling Victorian pile in
rural Hampshire, which for the next three years became the
band members’ communal home and the backdrop to the
albums that followed. On standout tracks such as Morning Rain,
1971’s Future Games album gave the first hints of the band’s
melodic pop direction and the growing influence of Christine
McVie to come. The following year, Bare Trees was also an artistic
success, with Kirwan delivering gems like the funked-up title
JOHN & CHRISTINE MCVIE: MICK FLEETWOOD ARCHIVE; GETTY x3
track, and Welch again vindicating his hiring with the stunning
autumnal ballad Sentimental Lady.
The upward trajectory couldn’t last. Kirwan’s paranoia and
alcohol dependency were spiralling, and his distaste for the band’s
direction and, in particular, Welch’s style were coming to a head.
In August 1972 Kirwan effectively signed his own death warrant
by refusing to take the stage and watching from the back as the
band struggled to cover his parts. For Fleetwood, Kirwan’s firing
was a no-brainer: “It was something we simply could not forgive.
 America here we come: the McVie/
Fleetwood/Welch/McVie line-up
relocate to the US, and the next phase
of the Fleetwood Mac saga begins…

“It was all about

Danny had broken the code, the one that said you friendship. Peter gave to London and Bob got fired from Fleetwood Mac.”
don’t hang your bandmates out to dry on stage.” Plainly, a clean break was needed. The answer
With the band again flailing, Fleetwood went me confidence. I play once again came from Welch, who suggested that
fishing for new blood. “Peter really set the precedent,” relocating to the States would give the band more
he says of his skills as a talent-spotter. “I’ve been in
from the heart. I don’t clout in that lucrative market.
the band since 1967, and I’m not a singer or know what I’m doing “Bob was the beginning of us living in America,
a songwriter, but my song became Fleetwood Mac, us really separating from being in Europe,” says
and I can quietly say that I had a lot to do with this half the time.” Fleetwood. “We lost a huge chunk of our audience in
strange journey of putting [and] keeping people in Mick Fleetwood Europe when Peter left, so the band changed and we
the band. I learnt that from Peter. migrated to America [in 1974].”
“In the same way, people have come into The move drew a line under a seven-year ride and
Fleetwood Mac and they’ve been acknowledged for a mind-boggling early catalogue. “If anyone cares to
who they are and haven’t been asked to emulate pick up the albums from the beginning,” says Fleetwood,
something that went before. Peter taught me those lessons “right through some of the changes we went through with
and I remembered them. I hope that part of our story is about Kiln House, Future Games, Mystery To Me, all these albums… it’s like a
acceptance of people who have come through the ranks, which has very strange and unusual musical. If you put on Blues Jam At Chess, or the
allowed this crazy story, where everybody has been unbelievably different, original Peter Green incarnation, then you put on Bob Welch or Kiln House,
musically.” you’re entitled to ask: is this the same band? There’s some similarity, but
Fleetwood didn’t always make the right call. In August 1972, Dave it’s hard to find sometimes. That in itself is a wild story.
Walker arrived from Savoy Brown full of promise, but was exposed in the “This book is about paying tribute to the members of Fleetwood Mac,”
studio. “He was very good at engaging the audience, and the crowd would he concludes. “It’s told by me, but I’m really hoping it feels like everyone
go nuts for him,” Fleetwood notes. “It wasn’t until we were making Penguin has been paid kudos to, who started this band, and the changes in the
that we realised it wasn’t going to work out.” band that are not often very well known. That’s why it’s really
Bob Weston lasted longer – contributing guitar to 1973’s important to separate it. I wanted this [story] to survive on
Penguin and Mystery To Me albums – but wreaked havoc its own. The book ends where I introduce Stevie and
by having an affair with Fleetwood’s wife Jenny, Lindsey to Christine. And that’s a whole other
sending the drummer into a tailspin, causing the story…”
cancellation of a US tour –and the so-called ‘fake’
Fleetwood Mac, a line-up of jobbing musos Love That Burns–A Chronicle of Fleetwood Mac,
absurdly billed as the real thing. Volume One: 1967–1974 by Mick Fleetwood is
“I couldn’t get through the tour, and had published by Genesis Publications. For more info visit
a breakdown,” notes Fleetwood. “I sent Jenny back www.genesis-publications.com or call +44 (0)1483 540 970
GETTY

CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 39
 The
Rumours
Years
With a new line-up and a new commercial sound, Fleetwood
Mac hit new heights of success, while relationships within the
band hit new lows thanks to drink, drugs, fights and affairs.
Words: Rob Hughes

M
ick Fleetwood had only popped out for groceries. But
a chance encounter with an old PR buddy at a shop near
his home in Hollywood’s fashionable Laurel Canyon led
to an invitation to check out a newly refurbished
recording studio nearby. Eager to find somewhere to
record Fleetwood Mac’s next album, he was duly taken to Sound City.
In-house engineer Keith Olsen was there to greet him. To demonstrate
the studio’s sonic capabilities, Olsen played Fleetwood a track he’d
produced for a local duo the previous year: Frozen Love. Its creators, the duo
of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, had since been dropped by their
label after the album, Buckingham Nicks, had tanked. Fleetwood, however,
was smitten with the track.
Frozen Love was “seven enchanting minutes of vocal harmony and
dynamic guitar”, he recalled in his 2014 memoir, Play On: Now, Then And
Fleetwood Mac. “I loved what I heard and asked him to play more.”
A few weeks later, in December 1974, Fleetwood was rocked by the
news that his band’s singer-guitarist, Bob Welch, was quitting. A
combination of gruelling tour schedules and a disintegrating marriage
had finally tipped him over the edge. Fleetwood Mac needed a
replacement – fast. And their drummer knew exactly who to reach out to.
He called Lindsey Buckingham and asked him to join. Buckingham was a daunting commercial proposition. “It felt right. It was very quick,”
quick to stipulate that he and Nicks came as a package. This insistence Fleetwood later told the NME’s Chris Salewicz. “We all liked each other and
impressed Mick Fleetwood. that was it. We rehearsed for ten days and went in and made the album. It
“It was family first, it was loyal,” he recalled. “They were like-minded was a great sense of circumstance.”
– they wrote together, lived together, loved together. They were very much By the end of February the record was done. Among the highlights
what Fleetwood Mac was all about.” were McVie’s soft-rocking Over My Head and Warm Ways, along with
So it was, in the first week of 1975, that Buckingham and Nicks formally a couple of striking Nicks compositions: Landslide and Rhiannon, both
became Fleetwood Mac’s latest members. of which dated from around the time of Buckingham Nicks. Landslide is
The arrival of the American couple signalled the end of a messy chapter a heartfelt commentary on the lot of the struggling artist, written in
in Fleetwood Mac’s career. Buckingham and Nicks seemed to offer a Aspen, Colorado after Nicks and Buckingham had been dropped by
brighter future and, crucially, an expansion of the Fleetwood Mac sound. Polydor Records.
The band were now blessed with three first-rate singer-songwriters. “I was looking out at the Rocky Mountains, pondering the
Nicks’s pliant voice could shift in a heartbeat from a kittenish rasp to avalanche of everything that had come crashing down on us,” she noted.
a wounded wail. Christine McVie brought a sturdier, though no less Rhiannon was a sparkling example of the radio-friendly new Mac,
tractable, alto. Buckingham, meanwhile, brought a Cali-pop sensibility to governed by creamy harmonies, finger-picked guitar and John McVie’s
his lead vocals and guitar work that finally unshackled the band from their sinuous bass groove. A supernatural tale, inspired by Mary Leader’s novel
blues-rock past. Triad, Nicks claimed to have written it at her piano in 10 minutes.
As they began work on a new album – the plainly titled Fleetwood Mac an “I still have the cassette tape of when I was first writing it,” she told
indicator of this ground-zero dawn – the band suddenly sounded like Classic Rock. “Lindsey came in and I said, ‘We have to go to a park and record
GETTY

40 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
 “We forced ourselves
into a pressing
creative world. That’s
a lot to ask when you
just want to get
the sound of birds rising.’ And he looked at me Given the band’s previous crises – the loss and
like I was crazy.” a dagger and stick it debilitation of Peter Green and Danny Kirwan, the
All the more remarkable when you consider that
Rhiannon became one of Fleetwood Mac’s most
in his or her back.” lack of sales, a dwindling fan base and, of course, the
sorry saga of the bogus line-up – it seemed as though
enduring songs, emblematic of their sound post-Peter Mick Fleetwood it was all bouquets for Fleetwood Mac at last. But
Green. “There’s something to that song that touches another messy narrative was already unfolding.
people,” Nicks said in 1976. “I don’t know what it is, There had been tensions in the studio. John McVie,
but I’m really glad it happened.” for example, had taken issue with Lindsey
Buckingham’s sometimes dictatorial methods at Sound

F
leetwood Mac’s transition from blokey blues outcasts to
mainstream superstars wasn’t quite the overnight success that
revisionist history tends to depict.
Released in July ’75, the Fleetwood Mac album took some time to gain
traction. The quintet toured the US for six months after completing it, the
hard miles spent on the road eventually paying off when Over My Head
made the US Billboard Top 20 early the following year. In June ’76, Rhiannon
peaked at No.11 in the US, but it barely scraped into the Top 50 in the UK.
The Mac had to wait until September before the album itself topped the US
chart. Only Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive! outsold it that year.
City, particularly his insistence that he teach the rhythm section
their parts. McVie told him firmly: “The band you’re in is Fleetwood
Mac. I’m the Mac. And I play the bass.”
This was nothing, however, compared to the relationship problems that
were afoot. John and Christine McVie were on the brink of divorce,
Fleetwood was going through the same thing, and it transpired that
Buckingham and Nicks’s relationship was floundering too. Fleetwood
had at first viewed them as “the perfect bohemian couple”, but the reality
was very different. Fleetwood Mac would prove to be rock’s most tangled
soap opera.

CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 41
 “Tusk was the most
important album we
made because it
drew a line in the
The stars of the soap opera that
was Fleetwood Mac in the mid-70s: sand that, for me, you’re feeling so hurt you just want to get a dagger
(l-r) Stevie Nicks, Lindsey
Buckingham, John McVie, Mick defined the way and stick it in his or her back.”
Fleetwood, Christine McVie. It’s to Fleetwood Mac’s lasting credit that they were
I still think today.” somehow able to unite all this fragmentation into
Lindsey Buckingham a cohesive whole. Musically, Rumours builds on the

B
y the time they all began work on follow-up
album Rumours in early 1976, the atmosphere
within Fleetwood Mac was volatile. These
interpersonal tensions were only heightened by the
ubiquity of booze and drugs. Cocaine was plentiful in the
studio. Inside the Record Plant in Sausalito, co-producer Ken Caillat
witnessed the creative toxicity first-hand. “It was like being trapped inside
a tornado,” he told Classic Rock in 2007. “Some moments we were in the eye
of the storm and all was calm, people were laughing and joking…
A moment later everything changed and people were screaming at each
other, breaking things; assistants were running for cover.”
According to Record Plant owner Chris Stone, speaking to Billboard in
1997: “The band would come in at seven at night, have a big feast, party till
one or two in the morning, and then when they were so whacked-out they
couldn’t do anything, they’d start recording.”
There were factions within factions: John McVie, Fleetwood and
Buckingham were living in a house nearby, while Nicks and Christine
McVie shared a small apartment.
The McVies had decided to limit their communication with one another
to matters of music only. Yet even that detente was severely tested when
Christine started seeing the band’s lighting director, Curry Grant.
Distraught, John threw himself into the bottle. The situation wasn’t exactly
sweetened when Christine wrote You Make Loving Fun as an ode to Grant.
“I don’t know if John ever really enjoyed the musical aspect of making
the record,” Caillat remarked. “But he put his head down and delivered like
a pro. Even while drinking, he never flubbed a line, not once.”
In contrast, Buckingham and Nicks dispensed with civility altogether.
The only time they weren’t ranting at each other in the studio, by all
accounts, was when it came time to do a take.
Talking to Classic Rock’s Max Bell in 2013, Fleetwood pondered aloud:
“How did we survive making it with all these ex-lovers blowing up in each
other’s faces? It was emotionally charged. We forced ourselves into a one-
on-one, twenty-four-seven, pressing creative world. That’s a lot to ask
when every time you look at someone your heart is in your mouth, or
driving AOR of its predecessor, adding richer blends,
bigger harmonies and a near-perfect consistency of
acoustic and electric textures. The songs,
unsurprisingly, are almost all about relationships. Don’t
Stop was Christine McVie’s attempt to inject a little positivity
into the band’s perilous emotional state; an infectious singalong
that banished pessimism to the four winds: ‘Don’t stop thinking about
tomorrow/Don’t stop, it’ll soon be here/It’ll be here better than before/Yesterday’s gone,
yesterday’s gone.’
Another Christine McVie song, Oh Daddy, was supposedly written in
honour of Mick Fleetwood’s temporary reunion with his wife, although
conflicting stories say it was another song for Curry Grant.
Buckingham’s Second Hand News and Go Your Own Way both addressed
the fallout from his failed relationship with Nicks. The former was
a carefree rebound anthem about finding comfort in the arms of others.
The latter carried a similarly upbeat tone, and stunning three-way
harmonies that arrived on the back of a rhythm inspired by the Stones’
Street Fighting Man. Nicks was unhappy about some of Go Your Own Way’s
lyrics, particularly ‘Packing up/Shacking up’s all you wanna do.’ “I very much
resented him telling the world that ‘packing up, shacking up’ with different
men was all I wanted to do,” she complained to Rolling Stone. “He knew it
wasn’t true. It was just an angry thing that he said.” But Buckingham
refused to amend them.
Among Nicks’s contributions was Gold Dust Woman, a document of
excess, the title referring to cocaine. Dreams concerns itself with her split
from Buckingham, advising her ex-lover to ‘listen carefully to the sound of your
loneliness’ and pointing out that women will merely come and go. Even
Nicks’s I Don’t Want To Know, written prior to her joining the band, was very
much on theme.
Rumours took more than a year to complete, but the time – and pain
– was justified. It was an instant success upon its release in February 1977,
shooting to the top of the Billboard’s chart. Within 12 months it had sold
nearly 10 million copies, made No.1 in the UK and won a Grammy.
Alongside The Eagles’ Hotel California, it represented the commercial apex
GETTY x5

42 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
 “Some moments
we were in the eye of
of West Coast soft rock during the 70s. It has gone
on to achieve worldwide sales of more than 40 the storm and all
million. Mick Fleetwood has suggested that the
romance of Rumours lies in its voyeurism.
was calm, a moment
later, people
T
he overwhelming success of Rumours only
accelerated the band’s indulgent behaviour. were screaming
Their new luxury lifestyle meant private jets, at each other,
a fleet of limos and outrageous tour riders (according
to Fleetwood, Nicks demanded a pink room with breaking things.”
a white piano). Cocaine was bought in bulk. In
Ken Caillat, co-producer
a move that echoed Pink Floyd’s appropriation of
a giant pig, Fleetwood commissioned a 60-foot
penguin to float over the stage at their vast outdoor
shows. “We were pleasantly out of control,” he said.
Fleetwood Mac may have conquered America (and half
the world), but they did so despite themselves. Intra-band relations
refused to run any smoother. Fleetwood and Nicks began a wild affair,
Christine McVie became involved with Beach Boy Dennis Wilson and
John McVie took solace on his boat in Marina Del Ray.
Buckingham, meanwhile, had immersed himself in his home studio,
where he began plotting their next album. By his own admission it was
an intense period that also saw him start to unravel. He was particularly
mindful of being trapped by expectations in the wake of Rumours’
commercial performance. “We really were poised to make Rumours 2, and
that could’ve been the beginning of kind of painting yourself into a corner
in terms of living up to the labels that were being placed on you as a band,”
he told Billboard in 2015.
Against Warner Bros’ wishes, the next album was envisaged as a double
album. Buckingham had become fascinated by the edginess and innovation
of post-punk and new wave, absorbing the music of Talking Heads, The
Clash and others. Rumours hadn’t been without its avant-garde moments – jet
phasers, Fleetwood hammering sheets of glass on Gold Dust Woman – but
Buckingham wanted to take his musical experiments to a whole other level.
He made obsessive home recordings, fiddling about with varying tape speeds,
placing microphones in his bathroom and using a Kleenex box as percussion.
Fleetwood Mac spent a fortune doing up their own Studio D at Village
Recorder in LA. Installing himself as executive producer, Buckingham
presided over sessions that lasted well over a year, at a cost in excess of one
million dollars, a then-record sum for a rock album.
He also retained the services of regular co-producers
Richard Dashut and Ken Caillat.
“He was a maniac,” Caillat said of Buckingham.
“He’d tape microphones to the studio floor and get
into a sort of push-up position to sing. Early on, he
came in and he’d freaked out in the shower and cut
off all his hair with nail scissors. He was stressed.”
A big wedge of the budget was spent the album’s
title track, Tusk, semi-tribal gallop that evolved from
a simple Buckingham riff that the band had been playing at
sound-checks. They recorded the 112-piece USC Trojan Marching
Band at LA’s Dodger Stadium to give the song some added oomph. If your
ears are so attuned, you might also be able to make out the sound of
Fleetwood slapping a leg of lamb with a spatula. Luckily for the band,
Warner Bros slept easier when the song became a huge transatlantic hit in
September 1979, a month before the album was released.
The Tusk album was a sometimes incongruous mix of tones and styles.
Songs like the exquisite Sara and Sisters Of The Moon, both written by Nicks,
felt like natural, very Mac-like extensions of Rumours. Others felt like
separate individual visions, from Christine McVie’s downbeat Over And Over
to a variety of Buckingham songs – the ruminative That’s All For Everyone, the
folk-indebted Save Me A Place, the faintly psychedelic Not That Funny.
Compared to Rumours, Tusk was greeted like an expensive folly. Sales
might have been highly respectable (four million copies worldwide), but
the suits at Warner Bros deemed it a relative failure, citing Buckingham’s
recklessness. Nevertheless, it was an artistic triumph and a global hit, a feat
all the more impressive for being much pricier than a standard double LP.
For Buckingham, however, it represented something far more valuable
at the end of a bust-to-boom decade that had threatened to turn
Fleetwood Mac into just another commodity. “Tusk was the most
important album we made,” he told City Pages in 2011, “because it drew
a line in the sand that, for me, defined the way I still think today. I was
trying to pave some new territory for us.”
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 43
 With drug use rampant in the band, it’s no
surprise that the 80s and 90s delivered them
some dizzying highs and crashing comedowns.
Words: Mick Wall

GETTY
A
t the end of the Tusk tour in 1980, Fleetwood Mac was over.
Blown away on the tides of cocaine, money, madness, and
a bloated double-album that appeared to do everything it
could to distance itself from the winning, grinning, sinning
So-Cal sound of Rumours.
Over-influenced by the sudden ascendance of punk, Lindsey
Buckingham had cut his hair, shaved his beard and bent over backwards
to try to bring Fleetwood Mac up to speed with the new now sound of
the delusional late 70s. The irony that this was achieved in a $1.5 million
purpose-built studio was apparently lost on him.
Now, in the aftermath of the relative commercial failure of Tusk, and
a tortuous year-long world tour that had left all five members in a hurry
to get as far away from each other as possible, prospects for any sort of
“W
follow-up were thin, to say the least.
Indeed, the next five years were to be so grim for Mick Fleetwood that
by 1985 he had sold his mansion, his flash car collection, even all his
gold and platinum records, and now slept on a cot in the back room of
Mac producer Richard Dashut’s Laurel Canyon home. He was bankrupt,
divorced, and so addled on coke that the only people he still spoke to on
a regular basis were the voices in his head.
“I’d been down before, in the years after Peter Green left and we
struggled to stay afloat,” he said. “But never anything quite like this.”
In 1985, the dogged keeper of the Fleetwood Mac flame – the man who
had co-founded the group and been its driving force for nearly 20
years – found it almost impossible to imagine how he would ever
fight his way back from this form of “extended hotel hell”.
How had it happened? How had things got to this?
I
f Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks had been
the catalyst for Fleetwood Mac’s evolution from “I’d been down
has-been British bluesers into Californian soft-
rock exemplars – the magic sauce that nurtured the before, in the years
hits and reinvented the Mac’s grizzly old image – it after Peter Green
was Buckingham and Nicks who used the early-80s,
post-Tusk era to parlay new, more exciting solo left and we struggled
careers for themselves.
Buckingham had sacrificed himself for Mac’s
to stay afloat, but
giant success for long enough, he now decided. It never anything
was time for him to go it alone, unbound by such
trite demands as hit singles and release deadlines. quite like this.”
He wanted to make art, and Fleetwood Mac was no Mick Fleetwood
longer the place for him to do it.
His next stop was Solo City – and a US Top 10 hit
in his own right, Trouble.
“Mick was a little bit bitter about me leaving,” the
famously strong-headed guitarist put it at the time. “But if
Mick and I see each other, there’s nothing wrong. The chemistry is
there – that’s what the band was all about in the first place.”
Indeed. And a statement that left the door nicely ajar for any future
rapprochement.
Nicks, however, appeared to have other ideas. She was 32 in 1980, and
ready for “a big new adventure”. She was also the biggest female singing
star in the world, had recently taken on a new manager, the all-powerful
Irving Azoff, also then manager of the Eagles, and destined to become one
of the major music biz players of the century. When Irving told Nicks that
now was her time to strike out on her own, she knew he was right.
“There’s the wild side to me and the free side,” she explained in 1982.
“As I get a little older and a little wiser, there’s still the wild side that doesn’t
want any discipline whatsoever in her life, and the part of me that knows
the only way I can get to people is not to be so terribly out of control, to
balance the two.”
Or put another way, if her solo career didn’t take off, she knew she could
always go back to Fleetwood Mac. Only Nicks’s career did take off, her solo
debut, Bella Donna, going to No.1 in America and selling nearly five million
copies, and including three hit singles, with the first, Stop Draggin’ My Heart
Around, becoming Nicks’s biggest hit song since Dreams four years earlier.
By 1982, as Fleetwood Mac gradually reconvened to make a new album,
Nicks was so busy – planning a musical based on Bella Donna that would
be “like the Othello of the eighties”; a ballet based on Rhiannon, or possibly
a film version with Nicks as the titular heroine; a collection of children’s
fairy stories, including her own The Golden Fox Of The Last Fox Hunt; and an
autobiography full of “the love affairs, the heartaches, the tragedies, the
incredible happiness” of her life with Fleetwood Mac – that she only had
time to contribute three songs. One of those, That’s Alright, was a hand-
me-down from her Buckingham Nicks days. Another, Straight Back,
sounded like a well-meaning reject from Bella Donna. The third, though,
Gypsy, was classic Stevie Nicks. Wistful, swirly and witchy, it gave the band
another huge Rumours-style hit. That, plus the equally sublime McVie and
Buckingham co-sung hit, Hold Me, elevated the new album, Mirage, to
No.1 in the US. The album still didn’t sell even a tenth of what Rumours had
done, but the Mac were back – like Tusk and coke and infidelity and deep
pockets had never intervened. Well, almost.
hen I’m writing my songs, or just writing in my journal,
I feel like the spirits are right here in the room with me,
helping guide my hand,” Nicks told me one night,
reclining on plush sofa cushions at her candlelit Hollywood Castle home.
“Not ghosts, more like… good feelings. Strong emotions, from the past,
from the future.”
Emotions that she wasted no time putting into her second solo album,
1983’s The Wild Heart. Mirage may have reestablished Fleetwood Mac as
a commercial force, but it did nothing to discourage Nicks, Buckingham
and now Christine McVie from instantly moving on to solo projects once
the subsequent tour – just 29 shows in two months – was over.
Buckingham quickly moved on to make his second solo
album, Go Insane – quirky, poppy, unashamedly MTV-
focused – which flopped. McVie had a minor solo hit
with Got A Hold On Me, which was Fleetwood Mac by
any other name.
The only one who was content to lie back in the
shadows and wait for the heat to drop was John
McVie. He did some old-pals-act, jamming with
John Mayall and Mick Taylor, reviving memories
of his Bluesbreakers beginnings. He became, in his
words, “a gagster” around LA, whenever he could
be bothered to stick his head out the door. Mainly,
though, he hung out on his boat, soaking up the rays.
As before, Nicks was the only one of the band’s
front three to score heavily solo. And the only one,
ironically, to really move the musical board on from
the classic floaty Mac sound. Collaborating with
Prince on The Wild Heart – hence the preponderance
of squelchy synths and drum machines – she had
another top-five hit with Stand Back, lifting the album
to double-platinum status. Similarly, the yet-more-
platinum 1985 follow-up, Rock A Little, in 1985, and the
top-four single Talk To Me.
But by now Nicks’s health – and decision-making – was faltering.
Having inexplicably turned down the song These Dreams, written
especially for her by Elton John lyricist Bernie Taupin and multi-star
collaborator Martin Page, she then suffered the ignominy of seeing Heart
take the writers’ second choice version to No.1. Her voice had also gone
from lamb’s-blood cool to wrinkled cat lady, the result in no small part
of her years of cocaine abuse. That and the brandy, champagne and
a ferocious cigarette habit.
“All of us were drug addicts, but there was a point where I was the
worst drug addict,” she would later recall of the period. “I was a girl, I was
fragile, and I was doing a lot of coke. And I had that hole in my nose. So it
was dangerous.”
At the end of her ’86 solo tour, she checked into the Betty Ford clinic,
and came out with a repeat prescription for the tranquilliser Klonopin
– given to her by a certain “Doctor Fuckhead!” she scowled – which she
also then became addicted to. Word was she had to have rhinoplasty to
fix her coke-rotted septum. She also suffered long bouts of chronic fatigue
syndrome following the removal of her silicone breast implants.
“They made me very, very sick,” she told one writer. “I had them done in
December 1976. I’d only been in Fleetwood Mac one year and I was getting
a lot of attention. I had always thought my hips were too big and that I had
no chest.”
Now her problem was no self-esteem.
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 45

“All of us were drug
addicts, but there
Meanwhile, Mick Fleetwood’s problem was no
anything. He had also tried for some semblance
was a point where
of a solo career, with The Visitor, No.43 in 1981, I was the worst drug
and I’m Not Here, which came and went in 1983
without troubling the charts at all. The latter was
addict. I was a girl,
billed as Mick Fleetwood’s Zoo, named after his I was fragile.
three-million-dollar pad The Blue Whale in Ramirez
Canyon. “A huge house built around a pool,” It was dangerous.”
which he said quickly “turned into a real zoo” of Stevie Nicks
dealers, groupies and after-midnight shenanigans.
Neighbours included Barbra Streisand and Don
Henley, but the entourage at the
house became “a pool of leeches”.
Now bankrupt to the tune of eight
million dollars, by 1986 Fleetwood was desperate
to get the Mac money machine up and running again.
He began by re-establishing his personal relationship
with Lindsey Buckingham. The guitarist, who’d recently
begun preliminary work on his next solo album with
Richard Dashut, invited Fleetwood – still living at
Dashut’s house – to work on some of the demos.
“I had some ambivalence about Mick,” Buckingham
confessed. “He was clearly into my album, and yet I knew
he was to a substantial degree instigating this whole
band thing. I couldn’t be mad at
him, because Fleetwood Mac is his Taking Nicks’s place:
lifeblood, really. He’s spent his whole Bekka Bramlett.
life trying to keep the ship afloat.”
When the sessions then evolved into a nascent
Fleetwood Mac album, Buckingham allowed it to
happen. “Everyone has said to me: ‘This is going to
be a good thing for you,’” he said, acting nonchalant,
“and, of course, you kind of are suspicious of their
motives, too. I’m a suspicious guy.”
The truth was that, like the rest of the band – Nicks,
excepted – Buckingham hadn’t enjoyed significant
commercial success since Mirage four years earlier.
He may not have been broke like Fleetwood, but he
46 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Ghost in the machine: Stevie
Nicks rarely attended the
Tango In The Night sessions.
craved the kind of bright-white-lights attention a new
Mac album would give him.
Christine and John McVie were happy to collude.
Fleetwood Mac had been their lives. They wanted it
to revive as much as anyone. As for Nicks…
T
he album, titled Tango In The Night – an oblique
reference to the various forms of ‘tango’ the
band members indulged in during the
moonlit hours, aka ‘dancing with the ice queen’, ‘no
blow no show’ etc – would eventually take more than
a year to complete. Yet during that time Stevie Nicks
spent less than two weeks in the studio. Then when she
did, she was so bumped-up, yanked-down, spun-around
that she found the process turgid, boring, a drag, man. “I can
remember going up there and not being happy to even be there,” she later
admitted. “I guess I didn’t go very often.”
In fairness, she had been on the road touring for some of the time, been
in rehab for some of the rest of the time, but mainly she was simply ill.
From the drugs, from the withdrawal, from the implant infection, from
the life she now found herself living as he spiralled into her late-thirties,
alone and vulnerable.
It’s all there on the three tracks she wrote for Tango, most notably
Welcome To The Room Sara, based on her month-long stay at the Betty Ford
Centre, where she had checked in under the name
Sara Anderson. The line: ‘Front line baby/Well you held
her prisoner,’ was in reference to her management
company, Front Line, whom she now blamed for
working her too hard – the classic rock star response
to allowing money and fame, and all the ‘fun’ that
went with it, to fuck them up. It’s there again in the
dreary, feeling-sorry-for-yourself ballad When I See
You Again, singing about ‘the dream is gone/So she stays
up nights on end.’ Not much better was the funk-lite
Seven Wonders, which Prince had perked up for her.
Nicks was so utterly absent from the Tango sessions
that when she sat down with the band to listen to
the first official playback she had a major freak-out
GETTY x2

because, she screamed: “It’s like I’m not even on this record. I can’t hear
myself at all.” To which Christine McVie replied dryly: “We wanted you
to sing on it too. But you weren’t here. Now why don’t you just say you’re
sorry and we’ll work it out.”
At which point, according to Mick Fleetwood in his 1990 memoir,
“Quite gracefully, Stevie capitulated in front of the whole band and we
gleefully layered her vocals into the mix of the album. Stevie had been
right after all, and so had Christine.”
In fact several of her vocal tracks had been deliberately taken out of
the mix by Buckingham, because she’d been drunk when she did them.
Instead he used a Fairlight sampling synth to assemble some of her vocals.
“I had to pull performances out of words and lines and make parts that
sounded like her that weren’t her,” Buckingham later claimed.
It was a shame, as the rest of Tango In The Night contained some of the
Mac’s best work since Rumours. Family Man, a Buckingham classic originally
intended for his solo album became one of the album’s six singles. He also
wrote and sang lead on the album’s most insistent hit, Big Love.
Christine McVie was also back on winning form, writing and singing
the album’s other huge hit, Little Lies, a song that would once have begged
for a Stevie Nicks vocal, here delivered with all the sugared aplomb of
a true pro. Ditto Everywhere. This stuff was radio heaven, the kind of fluffy
cloud-bouncing singalongs the Mac could again now be counted on to
keep the big wheels of the record industry rolling.
Released in 1987, Tango In The Night became the second-biggest-selling
album of Fleetwood Mac’s career after Rumours, selling more than two
million copies in Britain alone. Surely, even with doubts about Nicks’s
health still in the balance, the late-80s would be a new epoch for the band
now celebrating its 20th anniversary?
It was – but not in the way any of them would have liked. Because
just as they were about to begin a nine-month world tour, in September,
Lindsey Buckingham decided he couldn’t go through with it and abruptly
left the band.
Cue panic, fury, bitter recriminations, and so many different versions
of what happened that have come out over the years since that it’s almost
impossible to know which tells the most truth. What everyone
– even Fleetwood and Buckingham – seems to agree on is that
Buckingham bailed because he just couldn’t stand the
thought of going back on tour with a band that
still believed in all the ‘old-school’ ways of life on
the road: dusty rose nostrils, white-walled eyes,
brandy of the damned tongues and hundred-dollar-
“I couldn’t be mad at
bill shoelaces. Mick, because
Promises were made to him, inducement offered,
and then accusations and threats that culminated in Fleetwood Mac is his
Buckingham calling Nicks “a schizophrenic bitch”
and throwing her over the bonnet of a car. “You’re
lifeblood, really. He’s
a bunch of selfish bastards!” Fleetwood recalls the spent his whole life
guitarist yelling at them as he left.
Afterwards, John McVie merely shrugged: “It
trying to keep the
didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out this was ship afloat.”
gonna happen.”
But Fleetwood, the old trouper, who had dealt Lindsey Buckingham
with Peter Green at his most psychotic, who had
dealt with other prima-donna guitarists walking
out in favour of solo careers, who had kept the creaking
Fleetwood Mac ship on its unsteady but direct course
for two decades, shouted everybody down. He gave it the old stiff
upper and lip and announced: “We’ve got a bloody great record, and
we’re gonna look like a lot of bloody idiots if we don’t go on the road. Let’s the bathrooms and toilets with their gold fixtures and
keep our momentum going and use it to find new people.”
And that’s what they did.
T
he 1990s would provide for a strange kind of afterlife for
Fleetwood Mac. Fleetwood had desperately attempted to reinvent
the wheel again, bringing in singer-guitarists Rick Vito and Billy
Burnette to what was now the band’s eleventh line-up. But not even two
guys could fill the tremendous Buckingham-shaped hole in the soul of
the band, and though Fleetwood Mac toured successfully enough,
chartering their own Boeing 727 aeroplane, the only album this line-up
made together, 1990’s Behind The Mask, proved to be an artistic and
ALAMY
The Behind The Mask Mac, now
with guitarists Rick Vito (bottom
left) and Billy Burnett (right).
commercial dud. On it there were no hits, no give-a-shits, and although it
entered the UK chart at No.1 it dive-bombed thereafter and barely made
the US Top 20.
Both Nicks and Vito split, and Fleetwood dug deep again, this time
bringing in guitarist Dave Mason, the former Traffic/Hendrix/solo artist/
session slinger, and Bekka Bramlett. The daughter of American duo
Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, Bekka was a leggy blonde 25-year-old
who didn’t have a voice as distinctive as Nicks’s but she was almost half
her age and sure looked good. This line-up also released just one album,
1995’s Time, which became the worst-selling Fleetwood Mac album since
Penguin more than 20 years before. While on the road, the once magnetic
Fleetwood Mac now found itself sandwiched onto a nostalgia package
tour, between REO Speedwagon and Pat Benatar.
Buckingham’s next solo album, Out Of The Cradle had come
out in 1992 – the same year Bill Clinton came to power on the
back of Don’t Stop – but was a complete flop. Even John
McVie put out a solo album in 1992, not that anyone
noticed. For a while, it really did look like no one was
getting out of this story alive.
No one – not even tunnel-visioned Mick
Fleetwood – could have predicted that there would
be yet more comebacks to come in the new century.
Instead, when I visited Stevie
Nicks in the early 90s, at her home
hidden deep in the Hollywood
hills, I found the lady of the house
in quiet repose. There was no
‘significant other’ present, just
a bunch of giggling middle-aged
female friends, all dressed to the
nines in teeny-weeny cocktail
dresses, drinking from fluted
wine glasses, submerged in the
dancing shadows of a house lit only by
thousands of tiny candles.
She showed me round the house, every room,
stairway, cupboard, hidey-hole, nook, cranny, even
fittings. Then we came to the bedrooms. There weren’t
that many, actually. Then we got to her bedroom. She pointed to the four-
poster bed on which sat dozens of Teddy bears, dolls and stuffed animals.
Later we settled on a couch and she told me how she believed in
reincarnation. How she still loved Buckingham and Fleetwood – and
others, right back to her earliest teenage crushes. She showed me her
journal, which she had kept for years, full of dry-pressed flowers and her
“secret thoughts” and poetry.
I asked if she could ever see herself back in Fleetwood Mac one day.
“No,” she she said, smiling. “Unless, you know…”
Oh, I knew.
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 47
 The
Rebound
Years
Buckingham and Nicks returned to the band, Christine
McVie left, Christine returned… and another series of
episodes of rock’s longest-running soap opera were written.
Words: Dave Everley

T
here’s a theory that Fleetwood Mac operate on a 10-year cycle, Missing person: Nicks
one that reaches peak success, maximum drama or was at first unwilling to
a combination of both whenever the year ends in a seven. carry on without
Christine in the band.
Since they formed in 1967, much of the band’s career has
worked to that schedule. The year 1977 produced the world-
beating Rumours, a soft rock masterpiece that played out against
a backdrop of romantic complication and personal psychodrama. In 1987
it was Tango In The Night, a Yuppie-era landmark created amid struggles
with drug addiction and barely suppressed acrimony that precipitated the
departure of Lindsey Buckingham before the album had barely cooled on
the shelves. Then 1997 was no less chaotic, with Buckingham returning for
a lucrative live reunion, only for Christine McVie to bail soon afterwards.
If 2007 and 2017 – so far – have bucked this trend, it isn’t for lack of
trying. The past 20 years of Fleetwood Mac have been no less eventful than
their first 30, albeit for different reasons. The tangled relationships that exist
between the five members – and especially between Buckingham and
Stevie Nicks – continue to define the group as much as their music.
“There’s a subtext of love between us, and it would be hard to deny that
much of what we’ve accomplished had something to do with trying to
prove something to each other,” Buckingham said in 2013. “Maybe that’s
fucked up, but this is someone I’ve known since I was
sixteen, and on some weird level we’re still trying to work
some things out.”
Or as drummer Mick Fleetwood neatly put it: “This
band is the most abused franchise in the music business.”

M
id-way through the 90s, Fleetwood Mac were
in trouble. Their last studio album, 1995’s
pallid Time had been a disaster. It wheezed into
the lower reaches of the British charts for one week, and didn’t even make
the US Top 200 – unthinkable only a few years before.
The problem was simple: there was no Lindsey Buckingham and no
members of Fleetwood Mac never allowed them to truly escape each
other. Within weeks of putting things to bed, Fleetwood began working
with Buckingham on his new solo album, soon pulling John and Christine
McVie into their orbit.
MAIN: DALLE/ICONICPIX; INSET: GEMA-ICONICPIX

Stevie Nicks. It might have said ‘Fleetwood Mac’ on the record sleeve, but
this was a pale imitation of the real thing.
After the band found themselves on a soulless US package tour, Mick
Fleetwood decided that enough was enough. “It was starting to be too
much hard work,” he said a few years later. “We made an album that was
a total failure and I couldn’t see myself starting all over. So we stopped.”
Except it wasn’t that simple. The weird bond that existed between the
Nicks hadn’t been idle during her time away from Mac, and by 1996 she
was clean and, more surprisingly, collaborating with Buckingham again
on Twisted, a song for the disaster movie Twister.
With Buckingham at the centre of things it was only a matter of time
before the fragments of Fleetwood Mac were pieced back together. “Lindsey
was very much the focus of it all,” acknowledged Fleetwood. “I’ve gotten
real close to him over the last year, to a place we’ve never been before.”

48 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

“This band is the
most abused
Nicks was similarly effusive. “He and I are probably
better friends than we’ve been in a long time,” he said franchise in the
of Fleetwood. “We had some really nice talks and
some nice moments that were so sweet.”
music business.”
In March 1997, the inevitable happened: the Mick Fleetwood
Rumours line-up announced officially that they
would be reuniting for a tour later that year.
Fleetwood Mac’s 10-year cycle was running on time.
T
he first proper Fleetwood Mac concert to feature both
Buckingham and Nicks since 1982 took place on May 23, 1997 at
the Warner Brothers Studios in Los Angeles. Filmed for an MTV
special and billed as The Dance – a name that could be read as a
celebration of the reunion or a comment on the behind-the-scenes politics
involved with it – the show was a hybrid of the old and the new, mixing
stripped-down versions of 70s and 80s staples with a handful of new
tracks. Two of those songs in particular, Buckingham’s stinging My Little
Demon and the wistful Nicks-penned Say You Will, suggested Fleetwood
had a viable future beyond this gig. That was proven when the attendant
album went to No.1 in the US. After a turbulent few years, the train was
back on the rails.
Predictably, a full tour followed. Publicly, the line being peddled was that
they had all grown and matured since the tumult of the 70s and 80s. “The
craziness that existed in eighty-seven and eighty-eight was gone,”
Holding it all together: Mick
Fleetwood is the only ever-present
member of Fleetwood Mac.
Buckingham said. “I think the time apart helped us
appreciate each other. This has always been a group
of people you can say maybe didn’t belong in the
same band together, but it’s the synergy that makes it
so magical. We were able to see that more clearly.”
For Stevie Nicks, it wasn’t so straightforward. She
reflected that while the magic was still there on stage,
off stage it was a different matter. The simmering
tensions between the singer and her old boyfriend had
never truly cooled, and their relationship was trapped in a near-
adolescent cycle of mutual adoration, frustration and enmity.
“It’s like the old days, because our spirits never really change,” she
reflected in 2001. “It really is wonderful. It’s just not wonderful when the
affair comes off stage. You can be in love on stage and that’s fine, but as
soon as you mess up and take it off stage you don’t want to talk to people,
you don’t want to stand next to them and you don’t want them to put their
arm around you.”
This time, though, their rocky friendship was the least of the problems.
Halfway through the tour, Christine McVie dropped a bombshell: she
wanted out. “She flipped out and said: ‘I just can’t do this any more, I’m
having panic attacks,’” said Nicks. “She sold her house and her car and her
piano and moved back to England.”
Christine had effectively retired from Fleetwood Mac, and indeed from
music altogether. Her departure upset the delicate power balance
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 49

Fleetwood Mac came out of
hiatus to perform at an MTV
special, billed as The Dance,
on May 23, 1997.
within the band even more than Buckingham and Nicks’s departure had
done years before.
“She is the magic mediator,” said Nicks. “She’s the one that made light of
everything and made everybody laugh and told us we were all full of shit.
She was the person who made it all work.”
Christine took her bow at the beginning of 1998 when Fleetwood Mac
were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and received
a Lifetime Achievement award at the Brits a few weeks later. “We’d said our
goodbyes in America,” she said later. “We just all slipped away into the
night.” For once in Fleetwood Mac’s career, there was no drama.
McVie’s departure effectively pushed the stand-by button on Fleetwood
Mac for the next few years, even if Buckingham and Nicks couldn’t keep
out of each other’s lives. In 2001, Nicks released a solo album, Trouble In
Shangri-La, which featured Buckingham on one track, the aptly titled
I Miss You.
Buckingham himself had been stockpiling songs
during the 90s and early 00s, even bringing in his
bandmates to play on some of them. In 2000 he
presented an album, Gift Of Screws, to his label,
Reprise. Their advice: “Save these songs for “We were always
Fleetwood Mac.” Once again, Buckingham’s solo fighting. It’s no
career had been hijacked for a greater cause.
different than it
T
he songs that started life as a Lindsey
Buckingham solo record mutated into
was in 1976 when
Fleetwood Mac’s seventeenth studio album, we broke up.”
Say You Will, released in 2003. It had been 16 years
since Buckingham last appeared on one of the Stevie Nicks
group’s studio albums, and six since The Dance. “It
took us that long to figure out what the hell we were
going to do without Christine,” said Nicks. “Or even if we
could do it without her.”
It turned out that they could. Behind The Mask and Time had set
the bar low, but Say You Will was the sound of a band finally catching up
with themselves. Far from being a pallid recreation of past glories, tracks
such as Peacekeeper and the kaleidoscopic Murrow Turning Over In His Grave
threw off the shackles of nostalgia.
McVie wasn’t entirely absent – she sang backing vocals on Bleed To Love
and Steal Your Heart Away, two tracks that were originally recorded for
Buckingham’s postponed solo record. And Nicks had her share of
songwriting credits, most notably on the title song and Illume 9-11,
a mystical treatise on the World Trade Center attacks, even if the hefty
18-track running length carried the whiff of diplomatic tightrope walking
in order to please everyone.
Mainly, though, Say You Will was Buckingham’s baby. As far back as Tusk,
one of his chief roles had been to agitate the traditional Fleetwood Mac
50 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Being inducted into the
Rock And Roll Hall Of
Fame in 1998.
sound. Here, his protean songwriting and guitar playing wrong-footed
anyone expecting Rumours Revisited or Tango In The Night 2. Indeed Red Rover
and the bursts of borderline heavy-metal noise on Come sounded more like
Buckingham solo tracks than Mac songs. Not everyone was entirely
comfortable with this shift in focus.
“It was a nightmare doing that record,” Nicks later said of Say You Will.
“It really was Lindsey’s vision and it wasn’t very much about the other
three of us. And of course it was the first record we had ever attempted to
do without Christine. Right there, the whole thing was completely insane.”
The public didn’t share her concerns, however. They were just happy to
have a new album from this most iconic of ‘American’ groups, and pushed
Say You Will into the US Top 5.
While the band presented a united front in public, the old strains soon
came bubbling back. They may have been heading towards their
sixtieth birthdays, but Buckingham and Nicks were still behaving
like squabbling teenagers.
“On the Say You Will tour we were always fighting,”
Nicks said in 2011. “Our up-and-down relationship
never really changed. It’s no different than it was in
1976 when we broke up.” (Presumably any psychic
wounds were at least partially salved by the $27
million the tour reportedly generated.)
With the combustible dynamic at the heart of
Fleetwood Mac having exhausted more than one of
its participants, once the tour was over the various
members went back to their separate lives. Over the
next few years, Nicks bounced between lucrative
Greatest Hits tours and outings with old friends Don
Henley and Tom Petty, while Buckingham finally
released a solo album, 2006’s startling Under The Skin,
and settled into the role of left-field auteur. Both patiently
fielded questions about the future of Fleetwood Mac,
although their answers were very different; Buckingham suggested
that they might reunite for a tour in 2008, while Nicks was adamant that
she would be unwilling to carry on without Christine McVie.
Nicks won that particular battle of wills, and a reunion failed to
materialise, although matters weren’t helped when Nicks’s close friend
Sheryl Crow claimed in 2008 that Fleetwood Mac would be touring the
following year and that she would be involved. Typically, Buckingham
denied that Crow’s participation had ever gone beyond a casual
conversation, while Nicks insisted otherwise.
“It was absolutely discussed and she was absolutely invited to join,”
Nicks said. “The reason was because I wanted another woman in the band
– it’s hard to be in the boys’ club. I explained to Sheryl what it was like to be
in the group – that it’s all-encompassing. Like, on the Say You Will tour we
went out expecting to do forty shows, and it turned into a hundred and
GETTY x5
With Fleetwood Mac, you get
“The craziness that
the feeling the story will
never really ever be over…
existed in ’87 and ’88
was gone. Time apart
thirty-five shows. So Sheryl called me and said: ‘I’ll helped us appreciate
have to pass.’” each other.”
As it turned out, Fleetwood Mac were reactivated
in 2009 for a tour. Crow wasn’t involved, and neither Lindsey Buckingham
was Christine, although she was in the audience for
their show in London. At the same time, a BBC
documentary cast light on the current state of the
Buckingham-Nicks relationship. “Maybe when we’re
seventy-five and Fleetwood Mac is a distant memory, we might be
friends,” said Nicks.
Buckingham held the reins earlier in the decade, but now things had
become more complicated. A passive-aggressive power struggle played
out in the press. In 2011 the guitarist suggested that Fleetwood Mac were
ready to return. “We’re doing something for sure,” he said. “I wouldn’t be
shocked if it was a tour and possibly an album. We’ll have to wait and see.
With Fleetwood Mac there’s a lot of land mines out there politically, and
it’s hard to get everybody on the same page at the same time, but I think
this might be one of those years where everyone will want to do the same
thing. Whatever that is.”
Nicks felt differently. She decided to instead concentrate on her solo
album, In Your Dreams. In his very polite, very British way, Mick Fleetwood
put the blame for the inaction at the Nicks’s feet. “For now she refuses to
do a Fleetwood Mac tour. It’s down to her,” he said in 2012. “I don’t believe
Fleetwood Mac will ever tour again,” he added pessimistically.
I
n the event, he was wrong on both counts. Nicks changed her mind
and the band hit the road again in 2013. They even had a new EP to
promote, the prosaically titled Extended Play, comprising three songs
from Buckingham and one from Nicks.
If that was a surprise, then it was nothing compared to what happened
next. When the tour reached London, they were joined on stage by an
unexpected guest: the supposedly retired Christine McVie, who pitched in
on a rapturously received Don’t Stop.
“I had this idea that I’d love the small village life, with the Range Rover
and the dogs and baking cookies for the YWCA,” she
explained of her lengthy hiatus from music. “But
then it got so boring. You couldn’t walk down the
road without meeting two people related to each
other. I missed the songs. And I missed the audience.”
Sure enough, Christine rejoined Fleetwood Mac
officially at the start of 2014. Her return reinstated the
group’s best-known line-up, though it did little to ease the
push-me-pull-you dynamics between two of its chief protagonists.
“Relations between Lindsey and I are as exactly as they have been
since we broke up,” Nicks said. “He and I will always be antagonising each
other and we will always do things that will irritate each other, and we
really know how to push each other’s buttons. We know exactly what to
say when we really want to throw a dagger in.”
Nicks’s ongoing refusal to get involved in a new Fleetwood Mac album
wasn’t button-pushing as much as the act of a person determined to retain
control of their life. But it seemingly frustrated Buckingham, who has
subsequently attempted to persuade, cajole and plead with his on-off
partner into re-engage with the process. His suggestion in 2015 that
Fleetwood Mac were entering their “last act” read suspiciously like an
attempt at a guilt trip. But still Nicks has refused to budge.
In terms of their own 10-year-cycle, 2017 has been relatively quiet.
Evidently tired of waiting, Buckingham and Christine McVie released an
album together in June. Comprising material that dates back to 2014 and
featuring appearances from Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, it is
effectively a Fleetwood Mac record without Stevie Nicks.
But the story of “the most abused franchise in music” is still being
written. A new tour featuring the Rumours line-up has been announced for
2018. Mick Fleetwood recently said that they are sitting on “a huge amount
of recorded music”, although “virtually none of it” features Nicks. Given
the constant state of flux Fleetwood Mac exist in, only a fool would rule
out the notion of it ever appearing.
“God knows, our lives are unimaginable without each other,” Mick
Fleetwood has said. It was true in 1977, it’s even more so today.
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 51
 Dave Grohl was supposed to spend 2017 licking his wounds.
Instead he retreated into the wilderness, loaded up on wine and wrote
a schizophrenic new Foo Fighters album exploring his darkest thoughts.
Interview: Marcel Anders
E
ven a steaming hangover can’t slow Dave Grohl
down. It’s a summer’s day in Los Angeles, and
although the frazzled Foo Fighter rolls into
the band’s Studio 606 clad entirely in black, his
conversation is the usual kaleidoscope of themes.
His kids. Metallica. Animal from The Muppets. And, above all
these, the fiercely ambitious ninth album, Concrete And Gold,
that will scotch any lingering notion of the Foos as Nirvana-
lite. “This is something,” he tells us, “I’ve always wanted to do.”
By rights, Grohl shouldn’t be on duty. Recent times have
been sufficiently tough for this human dynamo to breathe that
dirtiest of words: hiatus. To recap, there was the tumble from
a Gothenburg stage back in
June 2015, the broken leg
and the makeshift set-up
that saw him installed on “I would drink a bottle of wine
a guitar-bedecked throne. and then scream anything
“Well, it’s strange,” he
reflects, “because I remember into a microphone. It was
right after surgery, having
the phone call with my
like this unfiltered stream
production crew. We had of consciousness.”
DAN BURN-FORTI/CONTOUR BY GETTY IMAGES ADDITIONAL REPORTING: HENRY YATES
to cancel four or five shows,
but we wanted to finish [the tour]. I knew I couldn’t walk for
months, so I thought, ‘OK, I’ll sit down.’ And we drew this
diagram and made that crazy throne.
“The first show sitting in that throne was so fucking weird.
I’d never sat down and played a rock show in a stadium. And
I was nervous, but by the end of the show, I thought, ‘That was
weird, and I like things that are weird, so let’s do it more.’”
Grohl’s throne carved out its own small slice of rock’n’roll
folklore – especially when it was lent to fellow hobbler Axl
Rose. “I went to see Guns N’ Roses and it was a fucking great
show, but I was sitting there watching them, like, ‘That’s
the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen in my life.’ It’s like
watching a king on a throne just sort of conduct an audience.”
But when he dethroned each night, Grohl struggled.
“We did fifty or sixty shows after I’d broken my leg and I had
a blast. The shows where I was sitting in that ridiculous
throne thing, I fucking loved it. But those were the best three
hours of the day. It was the other twenty-one hours that were
a challenge, because I was on crutches or in a wheelchair. So
not only was it physically challenging, but after a while it’s
emotionally difficult, so I thought the best thing for the band
would be just to stop and get away from it for a while. We’ve
always felt like if we get to the point where it’s just about to
snap then we back off and say, ‘We should stop,’ y’know?”
This was to be the year the Foo Fighters lay low, dabbled
in rainy-day projects,
caught up with their long-
suffering families. That was
never going to work out.
As the sprawling master
tapes and wall-mounted
platinum discs of Studio
606 attest, since he formed
the Foos back in 1994,
downtime has not been
in Grohl’s vocabulary. The
frontman soon found himself feeling rudderless, empty, bereft.
“I was approaching other projects, like directing movies
and stuff like that, just to do something other than the band,
but my passion wasn’t the same. And it actually seemed like
work, this other project. I’ve never had to manufacture some
inspiration to be in the Foo Fighters. It’s always been real.
And here I was trying to create some inspiration or energy
to do something else. And I realised, like, ‘Oh, that’s what it’s
like when your heart isn’t one hundred per cent in it.’ It was
around then I started to realise, like, the best thing for me
isn’t a break, it’s to make music with the band.
“It’s hard to spend too much time away,” he says. “I need to
play music with these guys. It’s such a big part of my life
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 53
 Game of thrones: the king
of rock puts his feet up.

ever done it before. Like, anywhere you want to go,

that when you’re away from it for six months, eight
Sane old songs:
“Music is what keeps
me from going crazy.”
hit-and-hope variety, that couldn’t be further from
he’ll take you farther than you thought you could
go. So if you say, ‘I want this to be really trashy and
noisy,’ then you get a song like La Dee Da, which is
just really, like, fucking noisy. If I say, ‘I want this
to sound really huge, like a choir,’ then you get
a song like Concrete And Gold, where it goes from
being this really spare, dark Black Sabbath riff to
exploding into this mushroom cloud of fucking
choirs. I eventually realised that the [title track]
not only serves as this hopeful finale to the album,
but it also does represent the juxtaposition or the
duality of the sound of the record. There’s that
raw foundation of noisy rock riffs, and then that
beautiful shiny melody and harmony on top.
“I grew up listening to The Beatles when I was
young,” Grohl continues. “The songs I always loved
the most were the ones that were kinda dark and
sinister, like She’s So Heavy. It’s almost like the first
dark metal riff. It’s like, you just close your eyes and
it seems like this fucking sinister, dark vibe. But the
vocals are so beautiful, and the lyrics… I mean, the
harmonies they would stack are so fucking pretty,
and I knew that when I was ten. So that’s sort of
written into my DNA zipper musically – that’s
my first love. And this time, we’ve actually got to
the place where I feel satisfied that we did that one
thing that I always wanted to do, y’know?”

months, whatever it is, you actually feel empty in
a way. I thought at one point that music was the
thing that was making me exhausted and fucking
up my head. But then after six months, I realised:
‘No, no, no, wait. Music is what keeps me from
going crazy, y’know?’”
the truth. Described by the line-up as “Motörhead’s
version of Sgt. Pepper”, this ninth album is the most
ambitious of their career, walking a tightrope
between savage hard rock and pure pop. The
natural conclusion is that this schizophrenic
quality is down to a happy tug-of-war with Greg
Kurstin, the producer best-known for his pop
T
hen there’s the Concrete And Gold lyric sheet,
whose often bleak viewpoint is at odds
with Grohl’s sunny-side-up persona, and
prompted Josh Homme to note: “Finally, Dave’s
made a dark album. It was about time.”
“Well, I had been watching television and
thinking about the state of the world and the state

S
o began Concrete And Gold, the new material smashes with Adele and Sia (as well as his own of America,” remembers Grohl, “and I went to
initiated over five days at an Airbnb in Ojai, off-kilter outfit, The Bird And The Bee). Grohl Ojai and fucking turned the television off. I threw
California, says otherwise. the television out the window and just wanted to
where Grohl “It’s something play music; disappear. But yeah, I mean, I think
stripped to his I’ve always the current climate here on planet Earth is a bit
underwear, drank “When we play live and you’ve wanted to do. I’ve disparaging. It seems like there’s so much division
heavily then spat always wanted and conflict that ultimately all I want to do is bring
whatever came got a hundred thousand to make a record everyone together to feel some hope or sing a song.
to mind into people singing along, that’s where musically “When you come to a Foo Fighters show,” he
a portable studio. or instrumentally, continues, “not everybody comes from the same
“When I went to what life’s all about.” or dynamically, place. They’re from all walks of life and different
sing these songs,” it’s really diverse. races, different religions, different nationalities,
he says, “I went into that house in the woods for So every record has its moments of that, whether different languages, but they all manage to come
MAIN: KEVIN NIXON; INSET: GETTY

a week just by myself and I would drink a bottle of
wine and then scream anything into a microphone.
It was like this unfiltered stream of consciousness.”
If Grohl’s testimony suggests that Concrete And
Gold is an album of the route-one, three-chord,
54 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
it’s the first record, or the second record with stuff
like February Stars and See You, or In Your Honor,
there’s the acoustic side, there’s the rock side.
“But when I met Greg, I realised he’s the person
that’s going to do this bigger and better than we’ve
together and sing songs with us, and that to me is
the ultimate goal. I don’t want to divide anyone.
I want there to be this sort of coexistence, though
I feel like there’s a lot of institutions that are placed
upon us that really split everyone into so many

Foo Fighters: (l-r) Taylor
Hawkins, Pat Smear, Dave
Grohl, Rami Jaffee, Nate
Mendel, Chris Shiflett.
different factions that you forget about basic
common human behaviour.
“When I’m writing lyrics, I’m not so politically
direct that it would sound like a Rage Against
The Machine album, but what I’m trying to do is
express frustration at how everyone is so divided.
When we go play live and you’ve got a hundred
thousand people singing along to a song, that to
me is what life’s all about. Connecting all these
people with a lyric or a song or whatever. That’s
what gives me hope.”
Arrows could be interpreted as a call-to-arms
against President Trump: a song about a character
with arrows in his eyes and war on his mind?
“One of the beautiful things about lyrics is
that you wind up singing those songs for your
own reasons. Arrows is actually written about my
mother, and the struggles of being a woman and
a single parent, trying to raise two kids as a public
school teacher, and the struggles that I’d watch
her go through. Dirty Water, I think, is just about
feeling polluted by that black cloud of oppression.
Y’know, where you’re bleeding dirty water and
you’re breathing dirty sky, you just kinda feel
polluted by that sort of dark energy.”
Other songs, like the cacophonous La Dee Da,
with its references to cult leader Jim Jones, find
Grohl looking inwards and backwards. “That
song is about me as a teenager,” explains Grohl.
BRANTLEY GUTIERREZ/PRESS
“When I was twelve or thirteen years old, I started
discovering hardcore punk rock, underground
music, and I was alienated from most people in
my neighbourhood where I lived. I was the only
weird punk-rock kid, and there was something
empowering about that – I felt good about myself
that I was different from everyone else. And this
is in the 80s where there’s this conservative wave
of politics that was washing over America, with
the Reagan administration and Reaganomics, and
the country was in this state of conflict, because
instead of it being progressive, it seemed regressive.
And as a forward-thinking fucking alienated freak,
I just felt uncomfortable that: wait a minute, I don’t
want life to be like it was in the fifties. I want life to
be like it is fucking now. Today.
“There were times where it was difficult,” he
reflects, “but I felt
proud that I didn’t
just go by the
same standards as “When I’m writing lyrics,
everyone else in
life, and so listening
what I’m trying to do is
to Psychic TV or express frustration at how
fucking crazy
industrial music in everyone is so divided.”
my blue bedroom,
where I had mistakenly painted Jim Jones on my
wall. I didn’t mean to: I was painting his face on
a bedsheet and it stuck to my wall. So when I tore it
off, all the paint bled through onto my wall. So over
my bed, I had this mural of his face for years. And
obviously he was a fucking violent, terrible, crazy
fucking person… but I wrote that song about how
I still feel alienated in life in so many ways.”
Grohl is a teenager no longer. At 48, black must
soon give way to grey, the first hint of the ageing
process announced by his thick black spectacles.
“Oh God, it’s the worst,” he hoots. “When I was
FOO FIGHTERS
young, I really wanted glasses cos my sister had
them. She had braces and glasses. I was so jealous,
cos she had all the accoutrements. And then finally,
when I turned 40, eight years ago, my optometrist
said: ‘Well, you need glasses.’ I was like: ‘Yay!
I’m getting glasses!’ Now I’m like: ‘Fuck glasses!’
They drive me crazy. If I forget them I can’t read
menus. I ask people to read me the menu. It’s
embarrassing. It’s terrible. C’est la vie, mon chéri.”
Breaking your leg, sitting on that throne, getting
glasses… have you ever wondered if you might
be getting too old for all this? “Oh, I’ve felt like that
for the last fifteen
years, y’know?”
Grohl says, laughing.
“I remember when
we first started the
band, thinking, ‘Well,
I won’t do this in my
thirties cos I’ll just be
too old.’ But as you
play, you don’t think
about that. You just sort of feel like yourself. You
probably still feel like you’re twenty-five, until you
see your reflection in a window or a mirror and
you’re like, ‘Oh my God, what happened?’
“But no, I don’t think you could put an
expiration date on something that still has life.
I’ve always felt like there’s still life in this band,
and there’s still songs in the band, and we’re still
a fucking great live band, so I don’t know why
we would stop.”
Concrete And Gold is out now on RCA/Roswell.
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 55
ANDY EARL/PRESS
 From industry sharks to cancer and strokes,
nothing can sink Chris Rea. Rock’s great
survivor looks on the bright side of life.
Words: Henry Yates
F
ew experiences in life are more
humiliating than spluttering up the
driveway of Chris Rea’s country
pile in a decrepit Seat Altea. The
veteran bluesman’s home is a trove
of automobile porn: a gleaming Ferrari, a pristine
Caterham 620, racing overalls, press clippings of
Rea himself burning up the track. It’s becoming
apparent why he wrote Road Songs For Lovers, his
new semi-concept album, on which he admits
that he finds peace only behind the wheel.
“I love it,” he says with a twinkle, that burnished
face crinkling into a walnut. “I always have. I don’t
know why. How do you explain love?”
Rea looks good, all things considered. Last
week he had an MRI scan, the latest two-step in the
66-year-old’s long-standing dance with abdominal
cancer. It turns out there are other ailments afoot.
“I had a stroke in the autumn,” he reveals.
“Boy, that was a big shock. When I first got home
I couldn’t play slide guitar. It was horrific. Very
scary moment. I couldn’t play F major 7th. I got it
into my head that my perception of pitch had gone
with the stroke. And it took a lot of convincing
from people saying there’s nothing wrong with
what you’re playing. I’m getting it back now,
hopefully, for the tour.”
You’d defy anyone to detect an issue on Road
Songs. Rea’s supple, dextrous slide work is the fairy
dust on these bluesy songs of open-road escapism,
his desert-dry vocal wrapping them in parchment.
He recorded his parts here, in his home studio.
“They have to drag albums off me,” he says.
“If you’re not careful, you just polish. And that’s
a weakness of mine. Because I don’t have a big ego.
I don’t think I’m any good, really. I’d love to play
something and think: ‘Yep, that’s the best thing I’ve
ever done,” but I never do.”
He’s proud of these songs, though. Apart from
the sinister trudge of Last Train, it’s easy to cast
this album as a love letter to cars, the second great
MORRIS 1000 POLICE CAR: ALAMY
passion of Rea’s when he was younger.
“You’re a little boy in Middlesbrough,” he
reflects. “There are no colours, nothing glamorous.
Everything is black and white. Then you’re stood
with your dad and a German racing car goes
past you at 180 miles an hour. Even if it did that
now it would be incredible. Imagine the relative
perception in 1956.
“They’re not an indulgence,” he stresses of his
collection of cars. “I’m a proper racing driver. I’ve
got an international C licence. I race a 1957 Morris
1000 police car. It’s not exactly a Lamborghini,
is it? But I adore it. I’m an anorak. It’s about the
engine, all that. It’s not about status. The Caterham
will be my last car. It’s the heroin of car addicts.
Nick Mason [Pink Floyd drummer and fellow
petrolhead] once said to me: ‘You don’t have to
take drugs to be an addict,’ y’know?”
Aren’t cars stereotypical things for a rock star to
write songs about?
“I’m not a rock star!” Rea puffs, indignant. “There
have been moments when I wish I was. When I see
a Ferrari 250 GTO and it’s going for twenty-five
million pounds, for about ten seconds I wish I was
a rock star. It’s very difficult to be a rock star. When
I’ve met people who are rock stars, they’re focused
like you wouldn’t believe. They’re bothered about
their hair. They’re constantly having something
done to their face. How you look and how you
sound is everything. It’s narcissistic. I’m not.”
F
ame has always
repelled him,
Rea reminds “I had a stroke in the
me. Digging his heels autumn. When I got home I
in all the way, his
reluctant ascent began couldn’t play slide guitar.”
with his 1978 hit Fool
(If You Think It’s Over), which he despised, and when
the real circus began he was in too deep to walk
away. “I signed a record contract that was the only
one available to me at the time. I signed with the
wrong record company for what I wanted to do,
and I’ve been playing catch-up ever since.
“When I did The Old Grey Whistle Test, the other
band that was on with me was Dire Straits. I knew
that day that that was what I should be doing. But
it was too late. If Mark Knopfler had asked me to
join them that night, I would have. And I would
have gone to court with my record company. But
I don’t think my record company would have let
me go. They’d have let me starve rather than let
me go. Because somebody in Los Angeles had told
the head of my record company: ‘Never let that
boy go.’ It was quite sinister when you look back.
“When someone said: ‘If you’re doing that TV gig,
you’ve got to wear a leather jacket,’ I should have
just said no to all that. But then I mightn’t have got
this far. You’re constantly juggling what you want
to do and what you have to do.
“We had all this when I went back to the blues.
They all shit themselves. What they didn’t realise is
that Chris Rea fans like that. That’s the bit they like,
better than the poppier side or trying to have a hit
single. One German journalist for a rock magazine
said: ‘The best thing you can ever see is a Chris Rea
sound-check, because they’re just grooving and
playing.’ They used to have to get us off stage: ‘For
fuck’s sake, we’re opening the doors.’ We’re playing
away, happy as pigs in shit – because we love it.”
Last time we met, you said that the fallout from
fame left you bad-tempered and aggressive.
“Terribly aggressive. Y’know, I was four times
a week at the gym and I was sixteen and a half
stone. And fearful and paranoid that some twat
was gonna take me back to the old pop record days.
I became horrendously
paranoid. There’s
nothing to be paranoid
about any more.”
Aren’t you wary of
Road Songs becoming
a hit and the whole
cycle starting again?
“I don’t think we are. All through the spring
I was saying to my manager: ‘John, promise me
this. When it doesn’t happen, just stay calm. I don’t
want any fucking getting drunk and having fights.’
“One of the things I’ve noticed is that I don’t
think people care if you bring a new record out or
not. When you go to Harley Street, all the doctors’
names are on brass plates, and underneath it tells
you what they do. Well, that’s what we are. You’ve
got ‘Mark Knopfler: Money For Nothing, Sultans Of
Swing’. Doesn’t matter what else he does, that’s his
brass plate. ‘Chris Rea: Road To Hell, On The Beach,
Driving Home For Christmas’. If I made a triple
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 57
CHRIS REA
Speed freaks: Rea with
fellow petrolhead Nick
Mason of Pink Floyd.
album of the world’s best-ever music, better than
Beethoven, they’d still want On The Beach.”
Does that realisation hurt famous musicians?
“It hurts accordingly to the size of your ego.
The bigger the ego, the bigger the hurt. We’re all
brass plates. I mean, Elton John brought a fabulous
album out last year with the American producer
[T Bone Burnett]. There won’t be one person at
the next twenty thousand Elton John concerts
that will wait for a song off that album. You’ve
also got people who get the brass plate and put it
in neon and do ‘best of’ tours. In fact, in Germany,
the venue they’ll put you in and the type of money
they’ll put up is totally dependent on what songs
you’re contractually going to play. If you’re going
to do all your hits, they’ll put you in the big arena
in Dortmund; if not, they’ll put you in a club down
the road in Cologne.”
Given Rea’s troubled relationship with paydirt,
perhaps the most fascinating song on the new
album is Money, a rare deviation from the car
theme, on which New Orleans brass jousts with
his grizzled commentary on modern avarice.
“That was me listening to the money programme
[Money Box] on Radio Four,” he explains. “Everyone
sees their politics from where they stand financially.
That’s why everyone’s worried about Jeremy
Corbyn, because he doesn’t have any financial
desires, so he thinks you can live on thruppence.
But when he wins…
And he is going to
win. There’s no doubt
about it. I’ve got a bet. “If I made the world’s
I’ve got sixteen to one.
Him and his chancellor
best-ever music, they’d
will decide how much still want On The Beach.”
money they think you
need, everything else will go to the government.”
That’s bad news for millionaire musicians like
you, isn’t it?
“No, because I think he’s right. A lot of people
are like: ‘Fucking hell, Chris, don’t tell me you’re
a Corbyn fan. For fuck’s sake, don’t tell anyone!’
I’ve written a song about him. It’s called What’s So
Wrong With A Man Who Tells The Truth? Because he’s
standing there, even his own party are laughing
at him, and I thought: ‘You’re all laughing at your
own peril.’ And yes, in the old way, Corbyn is
useless. Because he says the wrong things. But the
young people have had enough.
“Because of my health I’m constantly in some
of these hospitals. And we need more money. Of
course, Newsnight will say: ‘Yeah, but where’s he
gonna get it from?’ Tax. It’s as simple as that. One
58 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Considering what Rea has
been through, he’s earned
the right to sing the blues.
of my musician friends said: ‘Well, we’re all going
to leave the country.’ And I think the people who
are left behind will say: ‘Good riddance.’”
R
ea reckons Road Songs, released on his
Jazzee Blue label, will cover his expenses
but perhaps not much more.
“Well, touch wood, it’s not costing me money.
But ten years with Jazzee Blue, you find out some
of the things you just can’t get if you’re not with
a big record company. There’d just be this mystery
of why you couldn’t get in that magazine. It’s even
happening now with gigs. Trying to get on a gig
that Live Nation don’t own is extremely difficult.
You find yourself not being able to get a venue.
You don’t know why. The men at the top are still
the men at the top. Most bands have become
casualties of the business, but at the top of the
business they’re on
the same money as
they always were. That
bit hasn’t changed.”
How do you
feel about other
developments in
show business?
“This is probably the only interview in the
world this week where it’s you and me sat
talking to each other,” says Rea. “Nowadays
they’ll send emails and just say: ‘Answer the
following questions.’ It saves money.
“One of my big shocks lately is how people
– even in the business – listen to music. It’s
frightening. When I first started, there was a man
who went round Warners’ offices all day long,
every day, resetting people’s hi-fis and playback
systems. Now they’re all listening to it on a PC.
And modern music has changed because of that.
Young kids make music for a PC. So they won’t
have a big, fat bass, because you can’t hear it on
a PC. They’ll make a more pointed, rhythmic bass,
and it’ll be quantised. And that’s modern music.
One of the final milestones for me was Ed Sheeran
at Glastonbury this year,” he continues. “Because
people were saying that he was using a little black
box, and he didn’t have a band. But the main point
of that was nobody cared.
“We have terrible trouble when we tour. The
last four people who’ve played the venue you’ve
arrived into are saying: ‘Well, we didn’t have
any trouble [with the sound].’ And you know
that’s because it was all on hard disc. Of course
you don’t have trouble, because you don’t have
a buzzing 1962 Stratocaster!”
And yet, for all the dodgy live sound and brass-
plate audiences, Rea says he’s raring to take Road
Songs into its natural habitat when he goes out on
his European tour in November.
“Touring is like a holiday,” he says. “And when
we do Germany and England on the tour there’ll
be an album that comes out of that. I’m already
onto my next one now. My problem is it’s almost
like having a form of autism. I seriously think
it’s quite close, creativity. I get up this morning,
quarter to seven. I’ve got to write something.
I’m useless at doing nothing.”
Somehow, you suspect Chris Rea is the kind of
musician who will never be done – unless his hand
is forced by factors beyond his control. Again,
where a ‘proper’ rock star would shut down any
such enquiries, Rea is an open book on the subject
of his gathering health issues.
“The medical is the leveller when you’ve been as
ill as me, with permanent damage,” he says. “And
it has a lot of effects that I wish it didn’t. But it does.
Y’know, there are reasons why I can’t go to the
Himalayas. And I’d love to. But the way my body is
now, digestion-wise, I couldn’t go up there.”
He brightens. “I’m happy to be here,” he says.
“I really am. And y’know, if you lose your pancreas
and you’re on morphine for sixteen weeks in
hospital, then you can say: ‘What’s wrong with me
NICK MASON: PHOTOSHOT
singing the blues?’”
Road Songs For Lovers is out now via Jazzee
Blue/BMG.
 As 1976 came along, Thin Lizzy were just another rock band, with a one-hit past and little
in the way of a future. Then they released Jailbreak, and the boys weren’t so much back in
town as running it. But after a disappointing follow-up, the pressure was on.
Words: Mick Wall
F
or the first five years of their topsy-turvy career,
Thin Lizzy had been also-rans – strictly second
div, with their 1973 novelty hit Whiskey In The Jar,
their earnest ‘Irish rock’ concept albums and their
constantly blurring line-ups. Could-have-beens.
Maybes. Jokes.
They were saved by the bell of their sixth album, Jailbreak, in 1976. For
the first time the band successfully showcased their intoxicating blend
of rock-funk-folk-blues bloodletting, and overnight Lizzy went from
uninvited guests to new leaders of the pack.
The big hit single from the album, The Boys Are Back In Town, had taken
them from town halls to the big league: multiple nights at London’s
Hammersmith Odeon, a first major tour of America, gold records on
two continents. Cool cats adored by
their kitties.
Twenty-six-year-old singer
and bassist Phil Lynott was the “We thought of ourselves
as the street punks of that
star. Black Brazilian father, white
Irish mother, Lynott combined
the Stagolee swagger of Jimi era, so when the punk
Hendrix with the street poetics of
Van Morrison.
thing came around, Phil
Flanked by two genuine just embraced it.” Scott Gorham
gunslingers in 20-year-old guitarist
Brian ‘Robbo’ Robertson (Scottish, fiery, bad for good) and 25-year-old
Scott ‘Good Looking’ Gorham (So-Cal cool, hair, chick magnet), in the
blister-popping heatwave of the summer of ’76, nobody in rock carried
more heat than Thin Lizzy.
Then, almost before the party got started: the crash. As drummer
and co-founding member Brian Downey puts it now, speaking from his
rural Irish abode: “It wasn’t helped by the lifestyles the band were living,
but the timing couldn’t have been worse. People coming down with
hepatitis and slashed hands… Situations that you could never predict
would happen – but did happen.”
A prestigious US arena tour opening for Rainbow had been
abandoned after Lynott – already deep into his potions and powders
– had picked up hep C from a dirty needle. Fleeing home to London,
Lynott wrote most of the songs for the band’s hastily scheduled next
album from his hospital bed. The result, Johnny The Fox, had ‘follow-up’
written all over it – emphasised by the fact its own hit single, Don’t Believe
60 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
A Word, was an almost identikit Boys Are Back reshuffle.
In Britain, it didn’t matter. Lizzy had repeat hits and even more
success on their winter ’76 tour, culminating in the sold-out three-night
stint at the Hammersmith Odeon that would be recorded and later
released as the 1978 Live & Dangerous double album. But after a brawl at
the Speakeasy involving his tough-guy pal, singer Frankie Miller, Robbo
slashed his left hand so badly he was told he’d never play again. Lizzy
were forced to cancel their second US tour in a row – a month of dates
in December intended to make up for the previous cancellation. Lynott
was furious.
According to Gorham, “Phil had become obsessed by everything
American and really saw the band making it big there.”
But with Johnny The Fox failing to follow Jailbreak into the US Top 30,
and another tour in tatters, Lynott
was convinced the band had blown
their big chance. He was right.
T
here had been a decent
attempt to recover lost
ground in America with
the self-styled Queen-Lizzy tour
of the US in the early months of
1977. “We really learned a lot from
opening for Freddie and the boys,”
says Brian Downey. “They were in a different league to us.”
The focus now, though, was on ensuring their next album would
restore them to the US charts. They already had the title, Bad Reputation,
which was a sardonic reflection on their damaged relationship with
American concert promoters, record company executives and
everyone else that had all but thrown in the towel when it came to
trying to get the band off the ground in the States.
Cliff Bernstein, then the band’s A&R man at their US label Mercury
– and later co-manager of Lizzy-wannabes Def Leppard – once said: “It
broke my heart that Lizzy continually fucked-up in America. In the end
you just move on to other things.”
In less than a year, they had gone from being compared favourably to
Bruce Springsteen to completely dropping out of the conversation. Bad
Reputation would be their belated attempt to fix that. “Promoters started
wondering, ‘Thin Lizzy – they cancelled again?’” says Downey. “They
GETTY
were questioning the band’s credibility. After that, we had no
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 61

“Bad Reputation was definitely an
improvement on Johnny The Fox. But
it didn’t do very much for us in the end.”
Brian Downey
chance of breaking America unless we had another
massive hit.”
Belfast boy Gary Moore had stepped in to
fill Robbo’s shoes for the Queen tour – but on
a strictly temporary basis. Moore-o, as they
knew him, had already joined the band and
left once before. “He had very high aims as an
instrumentalist,” Lynott would later tell me. “He
was into jazz rock and very technical stuff.”
Having known Moore since they were teenagers
in Ireland, however, Lynott also knew how badly
the guitarist wanted to be a star. When Moore
declined to continue replacing Robbo for the
Bad Reputation sessions, Lynott was prepared to
play a waiting game, and decided to record the
album with just Gorham on guitar.
“Phil said: ‘Fuck it, we’ll just do the thing
ourselves,’” Gorham said. “Lizzy had started as
a three-piece – I guess he figured it would be no
big deal. But I loved Robbo and I wasn’t at all sure
about handling a whole album on my own.”
Robertson, meanwhile, put on a brave front.
“I’m getting my own band together!” he bragged
to anyone who would listen. But in truth he was
devastated to find himself on the outside.
“Phil and I had our differences,” he said at the
time, understating the case more than a little,
“but we always worked well together.”
In truth, Lynott rarely ventured over to Robbo’s
side of the stage, instead throwing his best shapes
62 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Dancing in the moonlight,
caught in the spotlight:
Robbo and Lynott at
the 1977 Reading Festival.
in tandem with Gorham, with whom he felt a
much greater kinship. Phil and Robbo would fight
– “Phil had hands like fucking shovels!” – and
Robbo would invariably come off worse. Phil and
Scott would hang out, going out to clubs, doing
coke, smack, whatever; pulling chicks.
“Phil and I had this kind of clique thing going,”
says Gorham. “Like our own language, little looks
and things. That made it kind of tough sometimes
when someone new came into the band. Like,
you’re in the band now but you’re gonna have to
prove yourself first before you get really in with us.
“A big reason why Phil and I became such good
friends was because we trusted each other. No
names, but maybe with some of the other guys,
he never quite trusted them. We always tended
to agree, musically. Not always on album but
definitely on stage. Also, I’ve never been worried
about being a big star, so that never came between
us either, where maybe it did with some of the
other [guitarists].”
Robbo fancied his chances as a frontman. Moore
actually became a frontman. Lynott had a head
start on both of them and was determined that Bad
Reputation would help keep it that way. But it was
the twinned harmonies of Robbo’s guitar interplay
with Gorham that defined the Lizzy sound –
Robbo’s beautifully telegraphed solos and intricate
flourishes that finessed Lizzy’s badass hard rock
into something more lyrical and enticing.
Thin Lizzy in New York
City, 1977: (l-r) Brian
Robertson, Brian Downey,
Scott Gorham, Phil Lynott.
Lynott knew working without his firebrand
guitarist was a risk. To plug the gap, Tony Visconti
was hired to produce. Visconti was then at the
peak of his 70s powers, having produced all 20
of T. Rex’s major hit singles and albums, before
latterly working with David Bowie on some of his
most influential recordings.
At the time it seemed like a coup for Lizzy
to have someone of Visconti’s stature involved.
(Bowie’s Visconti-produced Low album was No.2
in the UK at the time.) Speaking now, though,
from his London home, Visconti says he saw it as
a no-brainer. “I just loved The Boys Are Back In Town.
For me, it was the best single of that summer. Then
when I met Phil a few months later, he charmed
me. He had such charisma. I jumped at the chance
of working with them.”
At Visconti’s suggestion, they worked out of
Toronto Studios in Canada through May and June
1977. The producer – privately disappointed not
to have Robbo there for the duration – decided the
best way forward was to bring the bass and drums
more forward in the mix, pushing the lone guitar
back, a technique he’d developed while working
with Bowie on The Man Who Sold The World.
A bassist himself, Visconti knew the value of
having a strong, textured bass lead the sound. He
then embellished that sound with strings, sax,
clarinet, keyboards, synthesisers and gongs, adding
greater panache to the band’s roughhouse sound.
He also took a firm stance on Lynott’s and
Gorham’s spiralling ‘partying’. “It got to the stage
where it was affecting work on the album,” he says.
“In the end I had to phone management and ask
them to get out here and help me sort it out.”
Now recording their third ‘make or break’ album
in a year, Gorham says: “What happened to Phil
was probably a direct result of that. ‘Jeez, I gotta
keep my shit together. I gotta find inspiration. I
gotta keep up, man. Hey, chop me out a line of that
coke…’ Then next time it would be two lines. We
needed that fucking joy juice, man, just to get us up
to keep us working. We figured the drugs were the
only things that were saving us. Now, that’s a crazy
way to think, but that’s the way it was back then.”
Lizzy co-manager Chris O’Donnell duly flew
out from London and read them the riot act: you
ALAMY/GETTY
have lost your principal guitarist, your last album
was a dud in America, punk is now taking over

everything in the UK, if you fuck this album up
it’s the end of your career.
“Everything was fine after that,” says Visconti.
“The guys knuckled down and we really began
making what I still like to think became one of
their best albums.”
M
ost of the songs had been worked
out before they arrived in Toronto.
Now reaching the peak of his
songwriting prowess, Lynott came in with some
of his best material, not least album opener Soldier
Of Fortune. It boasted a spacy Pink Floyd faded-in
intro and a quick lock into deep grooves, Gorham
doing a fine job of twinning his own guitars, with
Lynott in full-on storytelling mode.
“I started off writing the song to put down
mercenaries,” he explained at the time. “Saying
how disgusting it was going off and becoming
a trained killer. Then as I started to write the
lyrics, I began to realise that everybody has a little
bit of mercenary blood in them. You know, like
sometimes I’m real brutal with chicks – just go
after them, get what I want and ‘see you later’.
Everything I do and say is to get what I want. So
at the end of the song I had to say: ‘I am a soldier
of fortune.’ So it wasn’t as heavy as it was initially
intended to be cos as I looked more into it, it
wasn’t a simple question of black and white.”
This observation lay at the heart of the more
mature material Lynott was now writing. Not that
Lizzy lost any of their sting, as the title track, which
followed, ably demonstrated with its war-drum riff
and sneering vocals, though again with a mournful
glance sideways: ‘You’re too sly/So cold/That bad
reputation/Has made you old…’
A co-write between Lynott, Gorham and
Downey, Bad Reputation would replace Sha La
La on tour as the showcase for the drummer’s
spectacularly percussive solo.
“I remember that riff knocking around for
a good while before we recorded it,” Downey
recalls. “It was a great number to play. The unusual
time signature [6/4] was Phil’s idea. Scott and I put
the rest of it together, all the little embellishments
that really brought the song out. But Phil had the
lyrics written before we’d gotten into the studio.”
Side one, as it was in those days, also featured
a third utterly climactic Lizzy track in Opium Trail.
‘I took a line that leads you to the opium trial,’ sang
Lynott, and you knew he wasn’t making it up.
Again, songwriting credits went to all three
band members, but lyrically this was one from the
heart from Lynott. In interviews, he would talk
convincingly of being influenced by seeing a TV
documentary on the Golden States Of Shan – that
shit-pool on the borders of North Vietnam, Burma
and China where 50 per cent of the world’s heroin
trade was then said to come from. “It’s an anti-
drugs song,” he would insist, straight-faced.
In truth, Lynott had been dipping in and out of H
for heaven for over a year. So had Scott and Robbo.
Musically, however, this was Lizzy at another peak,
complete with a fiery new Robbo solo. Gorham
says: “It was me that talked Phil into bringing
Robbo back for some of Bad Reputation. I was trying
to get the magic circle back together again and he’s
not buying it. But he finally relented. ‘All right, but
just fucking keep him away from me…’”
Recalling his brief time in Toronto, Robbo said:
“I wouldn’t even fucking speak to Phil the first
GETTY
week I was there, wouldn’t hang out, nothing.”
Lynott with Freddie Mercury, Roger
Taylor and John Deacon during the
1977 Queen-Lizzy tour of the USA.
Visconti later recalled how after Robbo had
completed his solo on Opium Trail, “I invited him
back to the control room to hear the playback. He
just said no, he’d rather not, and left. It was a pity 80s. Lynott delivers one of his deepest, most honest,
because it was a great piece of work.”
Eventually, a rapprochement was tentatively
entered into. But the bond was fragile. “Me and
Scott always got on great with Robbo,” says
Downey. “But it had got to the point where Phil
and Robbo weren’t even talking. Then in the studio
with Visconti, they gradually got it together again.
They were talking, at least.”
The rest of the album’s six tracks were split
evenly between the good and the great. The good:
the poignant Southbound, the
phoned-in Killer Without A Cause
(The Boy Are Back… but only
some of them), and the gently “I wouldn’t
contrived Downtown Sundown.
Lynott said of the latter song:
even f**king
“Because I wrote Don’t Believe speak to Phil
A Word, every chick I went out
with after that used to throw
the first week
it back in my face – ‘I don’t I was there,
believe a word you’re saying.’
So I figured I’d write a song wouldn’t hang
that was actually a statement
of love, so this would be an
out, nothing.”
answer to it, and there’s a line in Brian Robertson
it that goes, ‘Please believe in love,
I believe there is a God above for love,’ you know?”
The great: the lilting, loitering chocolatey pop
of Dancing In The Moonlight, destined to become the
album’s signature single and Lizzy’s biggest and
best hit song after Boys; and That Woman’s Gonna
Break Your Heart, a wonderful big-sky production,
with Robbo allowed back in to add his distinctive
lead flourishes over Gorham’s taut acoustic
strum-a-thon. It could have signalled a whole new
direction for Lizzy, beyond the jailhouse rock and
into the wide blue open of orchestral pop.
And then there was the album’s most impressive
moment, Dear Lord. Co-written by Lynott and
Gorham, Dear Lord was the closest Thin Lizzy ever
THIN LIZZY
got to pure artistic transcendence. The music is
sweeping, epic, again closer to Pink Floyd than the
quasi-metal outfit the band would shrink to in the
no-jive lyrics, with its exquisite pay-off: ‘Dear Lord…
I believe your story now you believe mine.’ Lynott on the
phone to God: not praying, just saying, with angelic
backing vocals by Visconti’s wife, Mary Hopkin.
According to Gary Moore, speaking years later,
Lynott – who would publish his second volume of
poetry, simply titled Philip, around the same time
Bad Reputation was made – was a wordsmith first,
singer second, bassist third.
“He’d spend more time on the words than the
music because he found the
music not that difficult. They
were very simple songs, you
know? He’d play you Dancing
In The Moonlight on the acoustic
guitar and you’d go, ‘Is that it?’
Then you’d hear the finished
thing and understand what
he’d been so enthusiastic about
because he was hearing it as the
finished thing in his head.”
With Dancing In The
Moonlight and Bad Reputation
released as a double A-sided hit
single in the summer of 1977,
and pre-release reviews for
the album glowing, the band, with Robbo back in
tow, headlined that year’s Reading Festival.
They were back where they belonged – on top,
mama, better get your fuck-on below. The album
reached No.4 in the UK, making it their biggest-
charting hit. Yet when it came out in America, it
barely touched the sides, dragging its heels as far
as No.39, then falling off its horse again.
“Bad Reputation was definitely an improvement
on Johnny The Fox,” says Brian Downey. “But it didn’t
do very much for us in the end, even though it was
a great album. The problem was that by then the
band did have a bad reputation, certainly when it
came to America.”
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 63
 “It was me that talked Phil into
bringing Robbo back for some of
Bad Reputation. I was trying to
get the magic circle back
together again.”
Scott Gorham

Lynott and Gorham at

Hammersmith Odeon,
GETTY

December 1, 1977.

When the front cover of Bad Reputation carried
a simple black-and-white picture of just Downey,
Gorham and Lynott – no Robbo – it only served
to underline how much the band’s mystique had
mushed into misunderstanding.
Downey says: “I didn’t agree with that but I was
outvoted. Everyone just wanted the three of us
because everybody knew that after this album,
Robbo would be gone.”
In fact, Robbo continued ‘guesting’ with the
band for another 12 months. But it was getting hard
to keep up with what was really
going on. Getting harder to care.
T
he aftermath of Bad
Reputation found Thin
Lizzy living in a world
where on one side of the planet –
Britain, Europe, Australia – they
had never been bigger, while on
the other – Am-er-ee-ca – they
had effectively blown it.
“Every now and again
something would come along
that seemed to stop the band
in its tracks. And that seemed to happen a lot,”
says Downey. “Especially over those years when
the band was on a crest of a wave. We had so much
bad luck.” He pauses, then chuckles. “We could
have avoided it by living a bit more cleanly but it’s
easy to say that now. That’s the way the band was
back then. There’s no getting away from that.”
Drugs were normal; to be encouraged, in
fact. “Yeah,” Downey says. “It makes my eyes
GETTY
water now just thinking about it.”
Gorham, Downey and
Lynott in Copenhagen,
August 24, 1977.
Instead of following Queen and Led Zeppelin
into the frontline of American rock mythology,
Thin Lizzy now found themselves being lauded by
the new wave of punk stars who saw them as the
rule-breakers of rock royalty – one of us, guv.
“We thought of ourselves as the street punks of
that era,” says Gorham. “All the other rock bands
of the era were slick, vocal harmonies. We weren’t
like that. So when the punk thing came around,
Phil just embraced it. ‘Thank fuck, man! There’s
other people out there like us!’”
Lynott also saw the credibility by association
factor of being photographed
with Sid and Nancy, Bob
Geldof and Midge Ure, and
playing gigs around London –
half-Lizzy, half-Pistols – as the
Greedy Bastards.
“Phil was always very media-
savvy,” says Gorham. “Phil loved
doing Top Of The Pops. He just
loved being on TV. We would go
out and do a video and nobody
would play it because there was
no MTV in those days, so it would
become this whole financial waste
of time. But by God we had a video!”
It was around this time that the music press
began spritzing rumours of Lynott starring in
a movie about Jimi Hendrix. It wasn’t true, but
as Gorham says, “Phil never denied it because it
was a great story and got a lot of press.
“Phil knew the value of print, he knew the value
of a picture in a magazine. He had it down, he
had a map, he just knew this shit. We would do
THIN LIZZY
millions of fucking photo sessions, getting dressed
up in different outfits. Then right at the end of
every shoot he would say: ‘All right, now let’s have
a nice little smiley one for the teeny mags’ – which I
fucking hated. But he was right, of course, because
those mags did use those shots. You never had to
beg Phil for a picture. Even the drug busts he loved.
‘Hey man, you see my drug bust in the paper?’”
It would be another two years before Lizzy
recorded another original album, the void filled
with Live & Dangerous, officially Robbo’s last release
with the band, and still their best-selling collection.
It was only kept from No.1 in the UK by the Bee
Gees’ Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.
Convinced Lizzy had gone as far as they could
go, Lynott also looked seriously into the possibility
of making a solo album. He’d been talking about it
since Rod Stewart abandoned his band, the Faces,
for a successful solo career in 1975. “Phil thought
he could be the new Rod Stewart,” says Downey.
“He had the looks and the gravelly voice. He even
talked to Rod’s management about it.”
In the event, Lynott would have to wait until
1980 before seeing that dream come true.
Meanwhile, Robbo was ousted for the last time.
“We were all hoping Robbo would stay on the
straight and narrow but he’d fallen off the wagon
again,” says Downey. “Robbo and Phil weren’t
getting on too well again. I personally didn’t want
to see the most successful version of Thin Lizzy
falling apart before we’d even got started. I thought
this should be sorted out. Hopefully it’s just a
passing phase. But it just kept going on. Every time
we went on tour, some sort of argument cropped
up and the animosity started all over again.”
It came down to it being either Phil or Robbo
who would have to leave. No contest. “I think Phil
would have walked if Robbo didn’t.”
Gary Moore now came back in. Lynott agreed
to appear on three tracks on Moore’s 1978 solo
album, Back On The Streets – including the original,
slowed-down, soulful version of Don’t Believe
A Word and a new co-write between the two, with
Lynott on lead vocals, entitled Parisienne Walkways.
But again, the clouds came back when the latter
track became a hit single, and both men verbally
scuffled over who deserved the most credit.
L
ooking back now, 40 years on from its
release, it’s impossible not to see Bad
Reputation as both the peak of Thin
Lizzy and the beginning of a long, drawn-out end.
Brian Downey walked out not long after Gary
Moore rejoined. “I was burnt out,” he says. “My
health was really suffering. I needed to get away.”
Enticed back for the Black Rose album in 1979,
only to see Moore walk out for the third and final
time halfway through the subsequent American
tour, Downey looks back now on what he calls
“the Thin Lizzy curse” with the admirably balanced
perspective that only time and space can bring.
“I try to forgive the bad and focus on the good
times. In the studio, we never did 25 fucking
takes of anything. On albums like Bad Reputation,
if things weren’t happening, Phil would always
come up with a master plan to save the song.
‘Okay, this is the new arrangement I have an idea
for.’ And the new arrangement would normally
work. That just shows you how talented Phil was.”
And how brilliant and unique Thin Lizzy
really were. And why their real reputation will
outlive them forever.
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 65
 Steve Winwood, posing for the
sleeve shoot for his Arc Of A Diver
solo album in London, 1980.
 He was a teen prodigy with the Spencer Davis Group, tripped the light fantastic with Traffic, almost
joined Cream but was in Blind Faith, and had major success as a solo artist in the 80s. The ever-
restless Steve Winwood looks back over a glittering career and reveals his unexpected new direction.
Words: Rob Hughes

I
n his 2007 memoir, Eric Clapton vividly
recalls hearing Steve Winwood for the first
time. The guitarist was in the early flush of
his career playing in The Yardbirds when
he encountered the Spencer Davis Group
in clubland in 1963. Winwood, SDG’s
precocious singer/organist, may have been just 15
but, Clapton notes: “If you closed your eyes you
would swear it was Ray Charles. Musically he was
like an old man in a boy’s skin.”
Bob Dylan was gripped by a Spencer Davis
Group gig three years later, midway through
his UK tour. Afterwards, as seen on the Eat The
the mercurial supergroup. Winwood was so much
in demand as a musical ally – helping out Jimi
Hendrix, Lou Reed, George Harrison, Leon Russell,
Muddy Waters, Joe Cocker and Howlin’ Wolf, to
name but a few – that he was an industry veteran
by the time he finally got around to a solo career
in the latter half of the 70s.
“I came into music from a slightly different
direction than some of my contemporaries,” he
tells Classic Rock today. “I started off playing with
my dad, learning thirties and forties dance music
and American classics, which wasn’t particularly
easy stuff. And I was a chorister in the High
music, and trying to play them all, that being on
stage was just part of it. It didn’t occur to me that
there was anything I should shy away from.”
If there’s one prime directive in all of Winwood’s
work, it’s an inclusive approach to music making;
there’s very little that’s off limits to his imagination.
“With Traffic we made a conscious decision
that we would try to incorporate a lot more
elements – folk, jazz, ethnic music and even bits of
classical music and different forms,” he explains.
“I’d probably say that I’ve been trying to do
that ever since.”

G
Document film, an open-mouthed Dylan asks of Anglican church. That music got under my skin rowing up in the Great Barr area of
Davis: “How’d he learn to sing like that?” To which somehow. Then along came skiffle and early Birmingham, Winwood might easily have
Davis, appearing lost for an answer, merely replies: rock’n’roll and Buddy Holly. And later on came followed his father into the family’s local
“Well, since the day we found him.” Ray Charles, who introduced me to this crossover foundry business. But music took hold at an early
Steve Winwood always seemed fully formed from bebop and jazz into rock and R&B. I was so age. He was eight when he made his stage debut,
from the start. He was still in his teens when he engrossed with learning all these different kinds of playing in the same band as his father, a semi-pro
quit the Spencer Davis Group and formed musician, and elder brother Muff. Stevie
Traffic in 1967, leaving behind a trail became a regular on the Midlands R&B
of huge-selling hits, among them Keep scene in his early teens, before he and
On Running, Gimme Some Lovin’ and the “Punk rock was almost a reaction his sibling formed the Muff-Woody Jazz
somewhat ironically titled I’m A Man.
At 21 he was in Blind Faith, the band
against what I’d been doing. It was Band.
Looking to put his own group together,
GETTY

that came to embody the late-60s ideal of difficult for me to grasp that.” Spencer Davis caught them one night.
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 67

“With Traffic we made a conscious decision to
incorporate a lot more elements – folk, jazz, ethnic
music and even bits of classical music. I’d probably
say that I’ve been trying to do that ever since.”
“They were playing a form of music that was a step
up from traditional or New Orleans jazz,” he
recalls today. “I walked in and there was this kid,
pretty much not long out of short trousers, who
played piano like Oscar Peterson and sang like Ray
Charles. I asked him if he’d like to be in the band
and, in a lovely little Birmingham accent, he went:
‘I’d love to, but I don’t have a driving licence.’ I told
him I’d come and get him, because I had a beaten-
up old Bradford, which I’d paid fifty quid for.”
With Muff also on board as bassist, alongside
drummer Pete York, the quartet started working
up tunes by Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker, Lead
Belly and Woody Guthrie. Before long they’d
secured a weekly residency at the Golden Eagle,
and soon attracted a BBC crew to film the queues
around the block.
“With Spencer Davis we were discovering
blues and R&B, all this fantastic music we were
hearing from America,” says Steve. “They were
singing in a form of English and a lot of the time
I didn’t understand what they were talking about,
like ‘another mule kicking in your stall’ [from Muddy
Waters’s Long Distance Call, referring to someone
else making moves on your loved one]. There were
lots of things like that. And by not being able to
emulate that stuff accurately or faithfully, we were
inadvertently creating our own style.”
Life as a touring musician soon took precedence
over everything else. “I’m afraid it has to be said
68 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Traffic in 1965: (clockwise
from top left) Jim Capaldi,
Chris Wood, Steve Winwood,
Dave Mason.
that I never had a proper job,” Winwood says.
“At fifteen I’d be going up to play all-nighters at
the Twisted Wheel in Manchester, finishing at five
or six in the morning. Then on the Sunday the
same promoter had a club in Hanley, called The
Place, and we’d play that. I’d get home at one in
the morning, then have to go to school that day.
That was pretty unsustainable and I was kicked
out of school.”
Had the planets aligned a little differently,
Winwood’s musical life may have taken a whole
other turn in 1966. Not long after the Spencer
Davis Group had scored their second UK chart-
topping 45 with Somebody Help Me, Ginger Baker
was putting Cream together. Eric Clapton had
originally envisioned the band as a quartet, with
Winwood out front, although both Jack Bruce
and Baker favoured a trio set-up. Clapton was
outvoted, of course, but it’s tempting to imagine
how Cream might have developed with Winwood
also in the band.
“There was a slight lack of synchronisation in
the timing of things,” says Winwood, musing
on what might have been. “There came a point
in the Spencer Davis Group where I thought:
‘I’ve definitely had enough of this, I want to do
something else.’ But I’m not quite sure whether
that occurred before Cream or not, or if I was in
that mind-set. After that point occurred, though,
then yes, I would certainly have taken the job.”
Still in the spotlight:
Winwood in 1983.
A
s it transpired, Winwood elected to form
Traffic with three long-time friends from
the Midlands R&B scene – Jim Capaldi,
Dave Mason and Chris Wood. The four-piece
shifted around various bases in London before
finally taking up residence in a remote cottage in
Aston Tirrold, deep in rural Berkshire. In doing so
they set the trend for bands suddenly upping sticks
and ‘getting it together in the country’.
“The big problem was that we felt we couldn’t
play music whenever we wanted,” Winwood says.
“In London we couldn’t set the gear up in one of
our flats and make a racket at two or three in the
morning. So moving to the country was really
a practical move. We were living at the cottage
in squalor. It was kind of like a crash pad, four
lads living like students. But instead of being in
a university town it was half a mile up a muddy
track with no electricity and water from a well.
We were crusties, really.”
There were rumours, too, that the cottage was
haunted. “A few people have told me they thought
it was,” he says. “Of course, Jim and Chris are no
longer around to talk about it [Capaldi died in
2005, Wood in 1983], but I think they both had
quite vivid experiences. Whether or not that was to
do with whatever substances were around or not
I don’t know. Because there was a lot of that about.”
Spooked or otherwise, the cottage proved an
ideal base for Traffic to conceive their debut LP.
Released in December ’67, Mr. Fantasy was a minor
psychedelic classic, its loose-limbed songs stirred
by exotic rhythms, soulful white blues and Eastern
strangeness. Its standout tune was Dear Mr. Fantasy,
the product of a fertile songwriting partnership
with Capaldi and Wood. Its gestation, as with
most things Traffic, was a little unconventional by
pop standards.
“Our songwriting originally came out of
a need to have material for us to jam,” Winwood
remembers. “We learned to play together – I’d be
on guitar or organ, Jim on drums and Chris would
play flute and sax – and that gave us a freedom
to move different ways. We’d do these long
improvisations, and Jim, very often, would scribble
down a verse or chorus on an envelope or the back
GETTY
of a fag packet, which I’d stand up on the organ.

“Having recorded it, we’d go back and listen to
what we’d done and work out which bits to keep.
That was really the way we wrote. It was only
later, when Jim and I started writing with different
people, that we realised that wasn’t the way most
people wrote songs.”
After a second album in late ’68, Traffic were
finished, at least for the short term. It was a year
in which the increasingly restless Winwood
guested on Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland, slipping
a Hammond groove under Voodoo Chile.
By the next spring, Cream having disbanded,
Winwood and Clapton started hanging out
together more regularly. The pair would smoke
joints and jam amid the bucolic peacefulness of
Aston Tirrold. Ginger Baker popped over too, and
with the addition of Family bassist Ric Grech, Blind
Faith were born. Making their live debut at a huge
free concert in London’s Hyde Park, Blind Faith
lasted for one album and a brief US arena tour.
“Blind Faith was pretty murky, really,” Winwood
remembers. “That didn’t really work out quite as
well as Eric and I had intended. I don’t think there
was any one reason for that, but Eric didn’t want
to carry on doing what he’d been doing with
Cream. We were both looking for something
else. The music that we started off doing was
acoustic and jangly. It had a sort of folk element to
it, not something that goes down too well in the
arena rock environment. But of course rock was
becoming big money at that time.
“There was a lot of pressure on Blind Faith with
this sort of ‘supergroup’ tag,” he continues. “We
had pressures from the business to start recording
before we were perhaps ready, and we were
suddenly playing big places. So we were caught out
a bit, adapting what we were doing to those venues,
which wasn’t quite the right thing. Neither of us
were into that. We were starting to lose interest at
different points and were drifting apart.”
Winwood returned to the studio in 1970,
initially to make a solo album, under the guidance
of producer Guy Stevens. But things didn’t
quite work out. Stevens wanted to introduce a
few covers, whereas Winwood was more keen
on something more challenging. Stevens left,
and Winwood brought in Capaldi and Wood,
reuniting Traffic.
The result was John Barleycorn Must Die, a prog-
folk masterpiece that also voyaged into free jazz
and R&B. “For me, Traffic was like coming home,”
he says. “It was easier to explore music with Traffic
than it had been with Blind Faith. We were utilising
different kinds of music, trying to continue the
legacy we’d started and which hadn’t properly
come to fruition for us. There were still plenty
of other things for us to explore.”
T
raffic’s journey ended in 1974, amid
Winwood’s recurrent issues with peritonitis
(inflammation the abdomen) and after
a couple of uneven final albums. The decade
proved a transitional, sometimes difficult one for
him. He threw himself into session work.
“Something happened in the mid-to-late
seventies,” he reflects. “I dropped out a little from
the rock’n’roll world. I’d been doing it for ten years
since I left school and was looking for other things.
So I made a conscious effort to do a lot of sessions
and work as a sideman, to try to learn how other
GETTY
people were putting music together. I toured as a
Blind Faith in 1969: (l-r) Steve
Winwood, Ric Grech, Ginger
Baker, Eric Clapton.
sideman with John Martyn and played with a lot of
amazing people during that time. Then later on, of
course, punk emerged. I found that tricky, because
punk rock was almost a reaction against what I’d
been doing. It was difficult for me to grasp that, so I
suppose I sort of went underground a little.”
One of his ‘underground’ activities involved
a musical liaison with the eccentric Bonzo Dog
man Viv Stanshall. The pair had already co-written
Dream Gerrard for Traffic’s swansong album and
collaborated on Stanshall’s solo record Men Opening
Umbrellas Ahead. They then concocted a soundtrack
for a film version of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast,
hoping for financial backing. It never arrived.
They did, however, manage
to funnel some of its ideas
into Sir Henry At Rawlinson End,
Stanshall’s surreal satire of
“Blind Faith was
upper-English mores that was pretty murky,
eventually made into a film
starring Trevor Howard in the really. That didn’t
title role. really work out
“Viv was hilarious,”
Winwood says, laughing. “He quite as well as
always sort of needed a straight
man to do the musical things Eric and I had
that he was wanting to do. intended.”
And for a while I became that.
We’d go into pubs and people’s houses and start
off some kind of act. I’d play some music, he’d play
a bit on his euphonium, then try to do conjuring
tricks.”
In among all this larkery, in 1977 Winwood
released his fairly underwhelming solo debut. His
re-emergence as a major force didn’t happen for
another three years, with the arrival of the belated
follow-up, Arc Of A Diver. Stanshall co-wrote the
title track, although more crucially the record
marked the beginning of Winwood’s working
partnership with Texan songwriter Will Jennings.
Winwood also found himself restored to the
business end of the charts in both the UK and US,
STEVE WINWOOD
with lead-off single While You See A Chance making
the Billboard Top 10.
“At the end of the seventies my contract had
run out, but I was still held by another option,”
Winwood explains of the album’s inception. “So
I decided that I was going to actually do everything
on this record – play all the instruments, engineer
it and write all the songs. I think the A&R
department at Island thought I’d lost the plot and
forgot about me a little bit. Then at some point
they said: ‘Why don’t you at least work with
someone who can help you with the lyrics?’ And
they suggested Will. Lyrics were certainly always
something I could do with help on, so I thought,
yeah, I’ll work with this fella. I
didn’t really know much about
him or who he was, but we
just hit it off. I started to work
in a different way with Will.
We discovered lots of ways of
working together.”
Winwood’s 1982 album
Talking Back To The Night made
less of an impression, however.
Aiming to repeat the DIY
formula of Arc Of A Diver,
the album instead felt under-
produced and a little prosaic.
Its relative lack of success, in addition to marital
problems at home, led to a prolonged bout of soul-
searching for Winwood. There were even rumours
that he might quit music altogether.
“Was I thinking about giving it all up? Yeah,
I was,” he reveals. “I was looking at what else was
available – not that I could do anything else. But
I was looking for something a little different.”
His solution was to switch managers and
relocate to New York. He corralled a crack team of
helpers – including co-producer Russ Titelman,
James Taylor, Joe Walsh, Chaka Khan and Nile
Rodgers – and returned with his biggest-selling
solo record to date, 1986’s appropriately
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 69
 “With Spencer Davis we
were discovering blues
and R&B, all this fantastic
music we were hearing
from America,”

The Spencer Davis Group outside the pop

music TV show Ready Steady Go! studios in
Wembley in the 60s: (l-r) Pete York, Muff
Winwood, Spencer Davis, Steve Winwood.

named Back In The High Life. The album won three
Grammys, went triple-platinum and delivered
his first ever US No.1, the ecstatic Higher Love.
His writing partnership with Jennings produced
further hits with Back In The High Life Again and
The Finer Things.
In his late 30s, Winwood was suddenly a
mainstream superstar. His
sound may have taken on the
requisite gloss and polish that
the era tended to demand, but
his absorption of disparate
styles remained in keeping with
his previous work. His new
standing was compounded in
1988 by the equally big-hitting
Roll With It, whose title track
also topped the Billboard chart.
Winwood is quick to
defend his output during
the latter half of that decade.
“The music industry was growing at a rate of
knots, becoming huge and much more powerful,”
he says. “In some ways I was getting led astray a
little by the executives. I’m often accused, in that
period, of moving much more towards pop. But
Back In The High Life still has those elements of
ethnic music, folk, jazz and all those things we
GETTY x3
were trying to do in Traffic. It’s just that Traffic
Back in the high life: Winwood
collecting his Grammys in
Los Angeles in 1987.
had a lot of rougher edges, whereas this has that
smooth eighties production technique. So I would
maintain that I wasn’t particularly selling out.
It was all down to the way it was recorded.”
I
t’s been a while since we heard from Steve
Winwood on record. His last studio album,
Nine Lives, was released in 2008. When he’s not
at home with his family in his
centuries-old manor house
in the Cotswolds, he’s out on
the road with his trusty band,
playing dates around the US
and Europe. It’s a vocation
he takes very seriously, and
tapes every show in order to
assess the nuances of each
performance.
“Technology has made that
very easy to do now,” he says.
“It’s just a sort of laptop set-up
that we have. Sometimes we do it
just for our own educational purposes, so we can
listen afterwards and check on things to see how
we’re sounding.”
Now, he has just released his first ever live solo
collection, Winwood: Greatest Hits Live. The two-disc
set serves as a glorious overview of his 50-plus
years in the business, dipping freely into the back
STEVE WINWOOD
Winwood with
songwriting partner
Will Jennings.
pages of the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Blind
Faith and beyond. Most of what you might wish
for is here, including Gimme Some Lovin’ and I’m
A Man, Dear Mr. Fantasy, John Barleycorn and The Low
Spark Of High Heeled Boys (arguably Traffic’s greatest
moment), and While You See A Chance and Back In
The High Life Again. Above all, the album reveals that
Winwood is still fully engaged with all the things
that make him great, chief among them being the
finest white-soul voice of his generation.
“Over the last five or ten years we’ve been trying
to hone our live show a little more,” he says. “A lot
of the time I have to do certain stuff, or else people
complain if I don’t play Can’t Find My Way Home
or I’m A Man. So throughout the years we’ve tried
to reinvent them or give them a slightly different
twist, to keep ourselves interested if anything.
And the audiences seem to like them too.
“I’ve been working for the last decade with
José Neto, the Brazilian guitarist, and Richard
Bailey, who’s Trinidadian. So we give it a sort of
Latin/Brazilian feel, and sometimes with a little
jazz in there. We thought it was about time we
committed all this to record.”
Despite the subtle recalibrations of his back
catalogue, it might be easy to surmise that Steve
Winwood is riding out his days on past glories.
But it turns out that he’s very much fixed on the
future, and in a way that you might not expect.
Nearly ten years on, he reveals that he’s finally
begun work on a successor to Nine Lives.
“I’ve been quite into dance music lately,” he says.
“There are some DJ/producers who are doing
some very interesting stuff, so I’ve been looking at
different ways to see how I can work with that. I’ve
started putting some things down, and there are
also lots of people in places like Brazil and Cuba
that are doing things with dance music too. So
that taps into the ethnic music side of things. I’m
not sure whether it’ll actually be me or whether
I might try to invent a third-party act, as it were.
I’m just looking at all possibilities right now.
“There are so many different sub-genres that
it’s sometimes difficult for people of my age to
understand it,” the 69-year-old says laughing,
“so I have to get my son to help me fathom it all
out. But I do think that dance music takes as much
playing and manipulation as any instrument does.
“I’m not one of those people who thinks, as
a lot of my generation do, that the best music was
made in the sixties and seventies and since then
it’s all been going downhill. There’s some great
stuff around, and the future holds a lot of very
interesting things for me. I’m not finished yet.”
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 71
 Pro pilot, fencer, cancer survivor, author… As
you’ll find out from his new autobiography, there’s
much more to Bruce Dickinson than just fronting
one of the biggest heavy metal bands on the planet.
B I
ruce Dickinson would like you to
know that when it came to writing his
autobiography, What Does This Button
Do?, he didn’t need any outside help.
“People ask: ‘So who was your ghost
writer?’ and I go: “Actually, I did it myself,’” he says
proudly. “I physically wrote 180,000 words, and all
of it was on WH Smith pads in actual handwriting,
proper old-school.”
Writing an entire book by hand is a very Bruce
Dickinson thing to do. The Iron Maiden singer is
seemingly a man who can turn his hand to pretty
much anything: flying aircraft, fencing, fronting
one of the most successful bands of the past 40
years. The exception is swimming: “I am one of
nature’s sinkers,” he says.
What Does This Button Do? is a genuinely
fascinating and funny look back at Dickinson’s life.
From his early days growing
up in the Nottinghamshire
mining town of Worksop
(where he was raised by his “MY SCHOOL
grandparents until the age of
six) to his roller-coaster 40-year REPORTS WERE
music career, it paints a candid ALWAYS SIMILAR:
picture of a life well lived.
Today Dickinson is in ‘WOULD DO
characteristically voluble BETTER IF HE
mood, expounding on
everything from the torrid DIDN’T PLAY THE
time he had in the British CLASS CLOWN 24
educational system to his
successful battle with cancer. HOURS A DAY.’”
“Writing a book forces you
to look at yourself and what you’ve done,” he says.
“It’s an education.”
Your parents were often absent during your
early years – they were on the road with
a performing dog act. Were you always
destined to follow them into show business?
Even before I knew properly who my parents
were, I was after a pair of angel wings in the school
nativity play. I wanted to be the person wearing
them. My school reports were always depressingly
similar: “Has not fulfilled his good potential, would
do better if he didn’t play the class clown 24 hours
a day.”
You paint a vivid picture of your school days:
bullying, regular beatings from the teachers.
It sounds pretty horrific, but did it also make
you the man you are?
72 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Words: Dave Everley
It’s like the opening of the book says: everything
moves in mysterious ways. You’ve got no idea
where you’re going to end up. You have to take
things as they come. The one thing I am, I suppose,
is stubborn. I don’t fall over. Or if I do, I get back up.
Some of the teachers you mention were
fairly despicable. You write about some of
the canings they dished out as if there was
a sexual, S&M-like element to them.
The whole era was very strange. These were
creepy, dirty old men, and it was thought to be
normal and acceptable. The whole Jimmy Savile
thing and the rest of it opened up a massive can of
worms, because that stuff was socially acceptable.
The sort of stuff you’d be banged up for now, and
quite rightly. You have to pinch yourself and go:
“I’m really not living in the seventies any more.”
Was there anything good
about that time?
There were a lot of brilliant
things about the seventies, cos
it was pretty disorganised and
anarchic. But the flip side to
that was that a lot of people got
away with doing things that
really weren’t so pleasant.
There’s one teacher, John
Worsley, that you speak
highly of. He introduced
you to fencing. Did you
stay in contact with him?
I didn’t, but funnily enough I met his brother
years later. Maiden were doing something in
Florida in the middle of the eighties. There was
this fencing competition in Fort Myers, and I
ended up driving out there. I met this bloke called
Worsley. I went: “Worsley? John Worsley?” And
he went: “Yeah, that’s my brother.” Fencing is a
very, very small world.
Do you still fence?
Yes, but I hardly have any time to go near it. I keep
wandering around and looking at all my kit, going:
“It’s getting a bit rusty now.” [Laughs] Like me.
Have you still got it in you, though?
Absolutely. If I had a good run up, where I didn’t
have other stuff going on, I’d be good. I love it. It’s
really good fun. It’s cathartic and you get out there
and have a yell and a scream but nobody dies.
n his late teens, Dickinson moved to London,
ostensibly to study history at university but
in reality to pursue a career in music. After
a few false starts, most notably in pub-rockers
Speed, later called Shots (the highlight of their
career was Dracula, a homage to the literary
vampire that was more Carry On Screaming than
it was Bram Stoker), Dickinson ended up as
frontman with the NWOBHM band Samson,
where he traded under the name Bruce Bruce
and sported an impressive moustache.
If you met the twenty-year-old Bruce
Dickinson in the pub, what would you think?
Gosh. Light the blue touch-paper! I don’t know
what’s going on with that kid, but something is
going to happen. He’s either going to end up doing
what he says he’s going to do or he’s going to end
up in jail. Or at the bottom of the river.
You make no secret of your spliff-smoking
days in Samson, but then you stopped.
Had Samson not been such a bunch of potheads,
I wouldn’t have bothered at all. I was like: “I’ve
done the cannabis now, I don’t see any point in
taking it further.” Nothing else happens. All that
does happen is that people seem to slow down
and eat a lot.
Did drugs get in the way of your ambition?
No, not really. They just didn’t do anything for
me creatively. The first time, you’re like: “Whoa,
what’s all this about?!” But I soon realised I could
get the same effect just by wandering around and
using my imagination. I thought: “I don’t need to
smoke something to go and imagine that.” It was
a nice awakening, but once your consciousness
is awake, you go: “I don’t need that any more.” It’s
like writing really trippy lyrics – I’ve never taken an
acid trip in my life. I’ve never eaten a mushroom or
had anything remotely hallucinogenic. Everything
comes out of my imagination.
You always avoided cocaine. Why? It must
have been freely available.
I never got cocaine. I got speed, because it made
you run around really fast. But then it also made
you feel absolutely shit. As far as cocaine is
concerned, people get mashed and then sit there
with the most stupid gibberish coming out of
their gobs for hours and hours on end. It’s just
tedious at best, and at worst it turns people into
paranoid nutcases. So I’ve got no time for
JOHN MCMURTRIE
Samson, with
the moustachioed
Bruce Bruce (second left).
cocaine whatsoever. And obviously anything
resembling depressives, I just don’t get. I don’t
get why someone would want to shut reality off.
Cos reality is brilliant.
You write about Iron Maiden’s success in the
eighties in the book, but also about the hard
work involved. What does the pie chart of
‘Fun’ versus ‘Not Fun’ in that period look like?
By and large we were working so hard, it was
Groundhog Day: the venues get bigger, the venues
get bigger, the venues get bigger. The roller coaster
never stopped going down. At one point, Rod
[Smallwood, manager] had us doing nine shows,
one day off, eight shows, one day off. I said: “You
can’t run human beings like that, they’ll fall over.”
We were always arguing with Rod about making
life more comfortable for ourselves. At one point,
halfway through a tour, the stage manager literally
sleepwalked off the stage. We said: “Don’t you
think it’s about time we got a tour bus?” And he
went [grudgingly]: “Yeah, alright then.”
But was the whole thing actually enjoyable?
Of course it was enjoyable. The only thing you
miss is any semblance of life outside it. That’s
where it started to feel oppressive, especially
towards the end of the Powerslave tour. You think:
74 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
“I’VE NEVER HAD ANYTHING REMOTELY
HALLUCINOGENIC. EVERYTHING COMES
OUT OF MY IMAGINATION.”
“What’s the point of all this?” And it turns into the
world’s biggest circular argument. “What’s the
point?” “The point of it all is just to do it.” “Well,
there’s other things I want to do…”
F
or Dickinson, there certainly were other
things to do. In the book, he doesn’t hold
back when talking about his growing
disillusion with Maiden during the early 90s, and
his subsequent solo career. The impression of that
period, at least initially, is of a man who stepped
out of a gilded cage, only to spend the next few
years trying to escape his own shadow.
What was it like to leave Iron Maiden?
It was like being a wild animal in a cage. They
suddenly let you out and say: “There you go, off
you go into the jungle, feed yourself.” And you
go: “I’ve forgotten how to do that.” When I quit,
everybody assumed I knew what to do, but I didn’t.
It was a question of building it all up again.
Most bands have the luxury of doing that when
nobody’s bothered about them, so they make all
these really goofy mistakes. I just happened to go
and do the whole thing in public. In retrospect,
I didn’t do a bad job of it once I’d got things in focus.
What do you mean?
There were some great songs on [Dickinson’s first
post-Maiden solo album] Balls To Picasso. The big
Achilles heel was that there was no clear direction
On stage during yet
another of Maiden’s
gruelling tours.
– that’s what the listening audience want. But even
if I had come out with a clear direction I don’t think
people were ready to listen anyway, because they
were so shell-shocked at me leaving.
What did you learn about yourself during the
years away from Maiden?
I actually learnt a lot more about other people.
The one thing that happens when you’re in a big,
powerful rock band – as in, powerful in the media
– is that you have all kinds of people who will
protect you; all kinds of people who will hide bad
reviews from you or make sure you don’t see that
paper because it didn’t say nice things about you.
I don’t think that’s very helpful. But when you leave
the fold and you’re suddenly on your own, outside
the protective pentagram, you see all these people
queuing up to give you a good kicking, because
they couldn’t when you were in Maiden. And you
think: “Really? Wow.”
Did the negative reviews bother you?
I was quite sensitive to reviews, especially if
I thought they weren’t being fair. At the same
time, I was never afraid of a critical review
MAIN: ROSS HALFIN; SAMSON: GETTY
if it was honest and laid out reasons why.
When Blaze Bayley replaced you in Maiden,
you sent him two bricks painted yellow.
I saw an interview with him, and there was a line
at the end where he said: “I feel like Dorothy in

The Wizard Of Oz.” I thought: “That’s really sweet.
I know exactly how you feel.” So I painted two
bricks and sent them to him.
Did you ever see Maiden with Blaze singing?
No. It was all a little bit fraught. The only time I’ve
actually listened to the albums was when Steve
[Harris] said: “We need to go and record one of
these songs.” I thought: “Oh, how does it go, then?
I’d better go and have a listen to it.”
Blaze gave it his best shot.
He did. Absolutely. Hats off. Full-on respect to
him for that. His voice is very different to mine,
and there was a point when he got the job where
I thought: “How the hell is he going to manage to
do those songs? Maybe they just won’t do them.”
I said to someone at the time: “Why don’t
they really do something off the wall and really
outrageous? Get a woman! There’s some of
these female Finnish vocalists kicking around,
and they’ve got the most
outrageous voices! Do
something to really, really
knock people’s socks off.” But “FENCING IS
I’d have been fucked then. I’d CATHARTIC. YOU
never have come back.
GET OUT THERE,
HAVE A YELL AND
D
ickinson did return
to Maiden, of course,
in 1999, helping to A SCREAM BUT
usher in a period of success
that outstripped even that of
NOBODY DIES.”
the band’s 80s heyday. Since then he has diverted
his energies into other areas, including flying
(he’s a qualified commercial airline pilot, and
famously piloted Maiden’s Ed Force One plane
on several tours) and beer-making (he had hands-
on involvement in launching Maiden’s signature
Trooper beer). Even a potentially life-threatening
diagnosis with head and neck cancer in 2014 was
seen off with a characteristic combativeness.
You steer clear of politics in the book. You’ve
tried a lot of other things, but have you ever
thought of running for office?
[Emphatically] No, no, no, no, no, It’s madness.
No. I’ve got quite a few friends who are actually
MPs of all shapes and sizes. And I’ve had my fair
share of dealings with government agencies from
the aviation side of things. And the one thing
I’ve realised is that if you want to get anything
Aces high: Dickinson
piloting Maiden’s
private plane on tour.
done, don’t be a politician. It’s the civil
servants who run the politicians, as they
quickly realise when they get into office.
We stand more chance of helping
people out in Maiden by brewing beer
and creating jobs, or taking a hundred
and fifty people out on the road with us
and giving them all jobs. We do a huge
amount with Maiden.
How did your cancer diagnosis change
your view of death?
I’m a bit more philosophical about it now.
Although I wasn’t at any stage… how can I put
it… near death, I could certainly see it in the
rear-view mirror. Death doesn’t really cross your
mind much, unless someone has an accident or
falls under a bus. As human beings we brush it off,
especially if you’re at a relatively young age, full
of piss and vinegar, running around like a lunatic.
And then all of a sudden in comes Mr Death
with his scythe, pointing
and saying: “I have come for
you.” And you go: “Oh fuck.
Really? I’ve got things to do.”
So suddenly you find yourself
really getting on with that,
living your life that bit more,
doing the things you’ve got
to do. I find I have less time
for people who want to waste
my time.
So what does the future hold?
Maiden are having a bit of a rest. We’ve
a lot of things going on at the moment,
but nothing I can discuss in detail right
now. There’s half a solo album sitting in
LA too. I’d love to go and finish it.
The other thing is, let’s see how the
book goes, because I really enjoyed
writing it. I wrote 180,000 words and
obviously there was a bit of tweaking, and
we had to take out big chunks for space.
There’s about two-thirds of a book on the
cutting-room floor. I couldn’t do another
autobiography because I’ve already done
one of those. But who knows, it could possibly
turn into something else.
What Does This Button Do? is published on Oct 19
by HarperCollins and is reviewed on p104.
BRUCE DICKINSON
GOING IT
ALONE
The pick of Dickinson’s solo songs.
DRACULA
Neither one of his greatest songs nor even really
a solo number, this creaky slice of Hammer Horror
heavy metal by long-forgotten London band Shots
warrants inclusion as Dickinson’s very first recording.
A curio, but one that pointed to greater things.
SON OF A GUN
The Dickinson solo career got off to a flying start with
the glorious opening track of his debut solo album,
Tattooed Millionaire. A brooding takedown of religious
imperialism, it’s one of the finest things he’s
written, with or without Maiden.
TATTOOED MILLIONAIRE
The album itself was a stylistic grab-bag, but
Tattooed Millionaire’s title track was a brash
pop-metal gem with shades of Def Leppard’s
Photograph. Who was it about? Our
money’s on Nikki Sixx…
TEARS OF
THE DRAGON
Dickinson’s first post-Maiden album,
1994’s Balls To Picasso, was directionless
and unmemorable, but it did produce this
belter, featuring probably his best vocal
performance since Maiden’s Hallowed Be Thy Name.
OCTAVIA
1996’s Skunkworks was the sound of a man trying
to reinvent himself for the modern era. It
largely fell flat, but it threw up a few lost
treasures, including this mini-classic.
ROAD TO HELL
Dickinson’s reunion with Adrian Smith
on 1997’s Accident Of Birth found him
reconnecting with classic heavy
metal and brought Iron Maiden’s
greatest songwriting team back
together. With this galloping
anthem, they wrote the best
Maiden single of the 1990s.
MAN OF SORROWS
Dickinson doesn’t do ballads, but
when it comes to stately epics, few can touch him,
as this Aleister Crowley-inspired slow-burner from
Accident Of Birth proves.
THE CHEMICAL WEDDING
1998’s The Chemical Wedding was inspired by
painter, poet and visionary William Blake, and
the soaring title track flew on the wings of the
angels Blake once visualised.
JERUSALEM
Blake’s iconic poem (and English rugby
anthem) was the song Dickinson was
born to sing. In his hands, it’s turned into
something new: part mystical treatise,
part Celtic metal drinking anthem.
NAVIGATE THE
SEAS OF THE SUN
Bruce’s feet were back under the Maiden
table by the time of 2005’s Tyranny Of Souls, but he’d
kept some classic tunes for himself, including this slice
of part-acoustic, psychedelically tinged interstellar
brilliance that sounded like nothing he’d written before.
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 75
“This old black gentleman said:
‘Do you like the blues?’ I said:
‘I don’t know what the blues is.’
He said: ‘I’ll teach you.’”
The
Odd
d
Couple
l
A chance meeting in a music shop as an 11-year-
old sealed Tyler Bryant‘s fate, and led to him
learning about the blues and a whole lot more.
Now a shit-hot guitarist with his own band, he
shares stages with some of rock’s biggest names.
E
very town below the Mason-
Dixon line has a Roosevelt
Twitty. He’s the kind of old dude
you find in music shops or bars,
or maybe out on the street,
playing the blues like Howlin’
Wolf or Muddy Waters or Robert Johnson. In
another life he might have been as famous as those
guys, but in this one the world passed him by
a long time ago. Still, as long as he has a guitar and
life in his fingers, all those missed opportunities
don’t mean a thing.
Tyler Bryant met Roosevelt Twitty a decade and
a half ago in a guitar shop in Paris, Texas. Bryant’s
parents had bought young Tyler, an 11-year-old
obsessed with Elvis, a pawn shop acoustic guitar
that needed stringing.
“Sitting in a corner of the guitar shop was this old
black gentleman, playing a Lightnin’ Hopkins-style
blues song,” Bryant remembers. “I was immediately
moved by it. I’d never heard anything like it.
So I sat down and listened. He said: ‘Do you
like the blues?’ I said: ‘I don’t know what the
blues is.’ He said: ‘I’ll teach you.’”
Roosevelt Twitty did just that, shaping and
moulding this skinny kid. Bryant learned the
blues from Roosevelt Twitty, but he picked
up so much more too: dedication, decency,
hard work. Fifteen years on, those lessons are
starting to pay off.
T
yler Bryant isn’t really a bluesman any
longer, but its fire still burns in his soul.
With his band, Tyler Bryant & The
Shakedown, he’s manning the rock’n’roll
barricades, fighting against the musical dreck that
threatens to swamp modern culture.
He’s still a killer guitarist, of course, but the
Shakedown are all about the songs first and
foremost, and the ones on their self-titled second
album (their third if you count the one they
recorded a couple of years ago and has been sitting
on a shelf in some record company vault ever
since) crackle with energy. Epic tours opening for
AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses have taught them the
value of reaching right out to the back rows.
With his jet-black hair, ivory skin and AC/DC
T-shirt, the 26-year-old Bryant looks like a cross
between Keith Richards and Neil Gaiman’s
Sandman. In person he’s all southern charm – one
part self-deprecation, two parts self-belief.
Bryant is Texan through and through. He was
born in 1991 in Honey Grove (population 1,668),
which neighbours Paris, where Bryant met the
man who would become the biggest single
influence on his life: Roosevelt Twitty.
“I knew a couple of chords, but that was all,”
Bryant says of that fateful guitar shop meeting.
“Mister Twitty told my mom that if I wanted to
learn how to play, he would teach me for free.”
What did a 60-something blues musician see in
a pasty 11-year-old white kid?
“My plan is to build up
the Shakedown and
start a revolution.”
“I don’t know,” he says thoughtfully. “Maybe he
could sense that I was genuinely interested, and he
was moved. You can tell when what you’re doing is
hitting someone in the heart, and what he was
doing was getting me right there [taps his chest].
I understood it, even though I couldn’t play it.”
The Bryants didn’t jump at Twitty’s offer. They
were suspicious of why anyone would seemingly
offer something for nothing, let alone an elderly
black man in small-town Texas.
“The town I’m from, especially back then, there
was more of a racial tension,” he says. “It’s so weird
to think about it now, but it was almost… not
segregated, but people would hang out in their
own world. There had never been a black man
come up and offer to do something so nice for me
or my family.”
But the young Tyler was adamant, and his family
buckled. His mum began taking her son to Twitty’s
house. The older man played his young protégé
classic John Lee Hooker and BB King songs,
teaching him how to play the blues. “He was my
best friend,” Bryant says with a smile.
This mismatched couple made the perfect team.
They put a band together, the Blues Buddies. When
Bryant was 15, the Blues Buddies opened up for
Paul Simon; Bryant got kicked out of his high-
school marching band for missing that day’s
practice. “I didn’t give a shit,” he says with a grin.
The way Bryant tells it, their friendship became
about more than just music. “The kindness and
compassion he showed me, and the way he shared
music with me, it completely changed things, to
where I watched it kill racism in my friends
and my family.”
Roosevelt Twitty died in 2013 after a fall.
“Sixteenth of May,” Bryant says instantly.
He has the older man’s signature tattooed
on his arm. “I had him write it before he
passed. I told him I was gonna have it with
me at every show. When we played Madison
Square Garden [supporting AC/DC, in 2016],
I was like, ‘This is gonna be fun, Mister Twitty.’ He
was right there with me.”
B
ryant left Honey Grove, and Texas, a few
years before the man who was his mentor
passed away. At 17 he quit school and
moved to Nashville to play music, get noticed and
become famous. He was an outsider there,
a battered denim jacket amid the rhinestone shirts
and nudie suits of Music City.
“I was a rock’n’roll kid in a country town,” he
says. “I would wear my mom’s flare pants cos it
was the closest I could get to bell-bottoms.
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 77
TYLER BRYANT
Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown:
(l to r) Noah Denney, Bryant,
Graham Whitford, Caleb Crosby.
He hustled his way into the local music scene. He
set up a fake email address and pretended to be
a manager touting a shit-hot new guitarist. “I’d just
toot my own horn as this fake person to get myself
gigs,” he says. “I’d call local box offices over and
over: ‘I represent Tyler Bryant, and this kid is hot.’”
Why not phone them as Tyler Bryant?
“That didn’t seem professional.”
Whereas lying that you had a manager…
He laughs. “Well, it worked.”
These days, whenever he meets young kids,
would-be musicians, he gives them the same
advice: “Man, you’ve got to sell yourself. You’ve got
to go out and hustle and make things happen.”
He’s got a knack for making things happen. In
2011 he was
invited to open
for Jeff Beck
on his Emotion
“I would wear my mom’s flare
& Commotion tour. pants cos it was the closest
Beck had spotted
a video of this I could get to bell-bottoms.”
teenage guitar
prodigy on
YouTube and liked what he saw.
“He was looking for an acoustic opener and
thought I’d fit the bill,” Bryant says. “I was throwing-
up nervous, because he’s my favourite guitarist. He
would just nod when we passed each other. We
didn’t really talk, so I didn’t think he liked me at all.
I thought: ‘This is not good.’”
One night, Beck’s drummer told Bryant his boss
wanted to talk to him. Bryant thought he’d gone
over the top on stage and was about to get kicked
off the tour.
“He [Beck] was like: ‘You’re doing a good job. Do
you want to come play with us tomorrow night?’”
Bryant says, his eyes widening. “And I was playing
it cool, while on the inside I’m freaking out.”
Bryant spent the night binge-learning the songs
on Beck’s set-list. In the end they played Sly And
78 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
The Family Stone’s Higher. “It wasn’t even
in the set-list,” Bryant says, laughing.
“I probably ended up jamming with him
forty or fifty times.”
Bryant put together the Shakedown
before he hit the road with Beck. In true
hustling style, he’d hang out in
restaurants and ask if anyone knew any
drummers. Finally he met Caleb Crosby. “We
jammed together once, played our first show
a week later, and we haven’t stopped since.”
T
oday the Shakedown are completed by
bassist Noah Denney and guitarist
Graham Whitford. The latter is the son
of Aerosmith
guitarist Brad
Whitford,
a connection that
doubtless helped
them bag a slot
supporting the
Aerosmith earlier
this year. Sure,
a little nepotism never hurt anybody, although that
doesn’t explain how the Shakedown have ended
up opening for Guns N’ Roses and AC/DC. And
ZZ Top. And BB King. And Lynyrd Skynyrd, REO
Speedwagon and Vince Gill. But there’s a catch:
despite all the help, the Shakedown are still waiting
for their big breakthrough. Fair to say?
“Totally fair to say. It’s incredibly frustrating.”
Bryant frowns, then smiles his Texas smile.
“Hey, we’re working on it.”
That’s not even the most frustrating thing that
has happened to the Shakedown, he says. In 2015
they had a whole new record in the can and ready
to go. The only problem was that their US record
label at the time, Republic, wouldn’t put it out.
“You start dating someone, your date’s gonna
put on their best face first,” he says. “Then they tell
All shook up: Tyler Bry
ant
as an Elvis Presley-
obsessed pre-teen.
you: ‘Oh, actually I’m bipolar, and by the way,
I don’t take my medication.’ When we signed with
Republic, they said:, ‘We see this band representing
counterculture rock’n’roll. Rock’n’roll’s coming
back, we’re gonna change the mould with you
guys,’ all those things you want to hear. Then they
said: ‘You guys don’t have a radio single, we’re not
going to do anything, it costs too much money to
put out a record.’”
He sounds exasperated. “I could upload a record
for fourteen dollars for the whole world to hear.
I could put it on SoundCloud for jack shit.’”
Six of the songs appeared on the Shakedown’s
2015 EP The Wayside. Another seven are sitting in
a vault somewhere, gathering dust. “We’re not
even allowed to re-record them,” says Bryant.
He suggests that one day soon the Shakedown
will become so big that Republic will have no
choice but to release the music. He’s only half
joking. “My plan is to build up the Shakedown and
start a revolution,” he says. “I want to get enough
people together, going: ‘We demand this music!’”
This big talk isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds. The
Shakedown’s new album – obviously not released
on Republic – shows there’s plenty of life left in
rock’n’roll yet. The road miles the band have put
in, playing to huge audiences, is paying off. Tyler
Bryant might not be a superstar just yet, but he’s
working on it all day, every day. Somewhere,
Roosevelt Twitty is looking on proudly.
Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown is released on Nov 3
via Snakefarm and will be reviewed next issue.
 T T EAMROCK.COM
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E IN RA MAN
DIO AND ON-DE

THE SOUNDTRACK TO YOUR LIFE

 Rudderless after the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed ditched New York for London, hooked
up with Bowie and created the aptly named Transformer, the defining record of his career.
“
F
ollow the dotted line,” Lou Reed
grumbled at me in 2004. “Look,
put all the songs together and it’s
certainly an autobiography – just
not necessarily mine. I write about
other people, tell stories, always did. Any truly
creative person could make five albums a year,
easily. Each record is just what you did that week.
Another week you might have done the same
songs differently. But listen – I love every last one of
them. Every single second of every last one, okay?”
Okay. Fortunately for him, and for us, in late
1972 what he did that week beat most people’s
year. Transformer remains a remarkable arranged
marriage of gritty, witty words and pop succour.
It anointed him the godfather of anti-stars,
opening up a career that may otherwise have
swiftly gone the way of all flesh.
“I don’t have a personality of my own,” Reed
said in 1972. “I just pick up on other people’s.”
He’d come to London for a change of pace,
to “get out of the New York thing”, but his first,
eponymous, post-Velvets solo album, recorded
on the dirty boulevards of Willesden Green in
West London, had stuttered rather than strutted.
Nobody, least of all him, was sure where a former
Velvet Underground frontman should go next.
This is where the personality came in, and
plenty came out. Just five
months after that debut,
the November release of “I DON’T HAVE A
Transformer made Reed
a household name in all the PERSONALITY OF MY
most disreputable homes.
The world’s fastest-rising
OWN. I JUST PICK UP
rock star, David Bowie, ON OTHER PEOPLE’S.”
and his gifted lieutenant
Mick Ronson, bang in the
throes of Ziggy Stardust, coloured in Reed’s
persona. They coaxed forth the nervy,
needy spirit of Andy Warhol that
Reed had ingested and brought him
alabaster-faced into the glam rock era.
They gave his unorthodox songwriting
and unique vocal stylings the chance
to step out of the gutter and into the
spotlight. The cult of Lou became
a small religion as a freak hit
single boosted his ego
and confidence.
A mixed blessing.
Transformer
remains a caustic,
camp classic of
palatable pop transgression.
Things moved quickly. As a fan,
Bowie had been name-checking the
78 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Words: Chris Roberts Photos: Mick Rock
Velvets at every opportunity, playing their songs in
his set for two years and even singing Andy Warhol
on Hunky Dory. Perhaps calculating that he’d gain
as much reflected cool as he’d give out, he whisked
his American heroes and new pals – Reed and Iggy
Pop – around London, showing them off to the
press. Bowie saw in Iggy the wild, feral creature
he himself was too cerebral to be. Reed arguably
combined the essences of both, yet he was
malleable. He wanted a career.
He knew the ‘business people’ were urging him
to record with Bowie as the results would prove
both vibrant and commercially viable. “And it
turned out to be true, didn’t it?” he smirked.
Having always worn head-to-toe black, and
accustomed to having films projected onto
him, he allowed Angie Bowie to dress him more
exotically. Going heavy on the black eyeliner, he
became the Phantom Of Rock. “I realised I could
be anything I wanted,” he drawled.
On July 8 he made his London debut, as Bowie/
Ziggy’s guest at a Save The Whales benefit at the
Royal Festival Hall. A week later his solo gig sold
out the King’s Cross Cinema, and he smiled as it
sank in that the audience knew the words to his
Velvets numbers.
That’s where Mick Rock shot the live photo that
became the iconic album cover. Years on, Reed
sniffed: “I did three or four
shows like that, then went
back to leather. I was just
kidding around. I’m not into
make-up.”
His new glam guru was,
though. Bowie ushered
him into Trident Studios
in August. Sessions were
rushed, as Bowie’s other
commitments, with Ziggymania breaking
big, were escalating. Reed was, of course,
grumpy on occasion. The honeymoon
of mutual adoration was fading. Yet
chief arranger Ronson and unflappable
engineer Ken Scott (who’d produced the
Ziggy album) caught lightning in a bottle.
Bowie had encouraged
Reed to reveal tales
and mysteries
from his Factory
years, to talk about
the characters, the
bathos and drama.
He was eager to hear about
underground New York – an
impossibly glamorous notion to
early-70s Brits.
The album became a seedy but
redemptive, self-contained world, where the drive
for love led individuals down wrong turns into
impersonal sex and imperfect drugs. There was no
better microcosm of this than in one of the most
unexpected hit singles of its era. “Any song,” Nick
Kent wrote in the NME, “that mentions oral sex,
male prostitution, methedrine and valium, and
still gets Radio One airplay, must be truly cool.”
W
alk On The Wild Side is, along with
Perfect Day, one of the songs for which
the world at large will remember Reed,
even if he fluctuated in later years between being
grateful and deeming it a pain in the albatross.
At the time of recording, it was just another song
to his ears. His own preference for a single was
the wiry rocker Hangin’ ’Round. “Which is why
no one listens to me.”
As he’d recount during the 1978 shows at New
York’s Bottom Line (documented on the Take No
Prisoners live album), he’d been approached by
theatrical entrepreneurs in ’71. They’d proposed
the idea of adapting the 1956 Nelson Algren novel
about vice and addiction, A Walk On The Wild Side.
“Are you kidding?” Reed protested, true to his
contrary nature. “It’s about cripples in the ghetto.
I’m the best-qualified person to set music to a book
about cripples in the ghetto?”
He demurred, officially, yet borrowed the title
and sketched out ideas. Nudged first by Warhol
and then by Bowie, he redrafted, peopling this
backdrop with the New York personalities he’d
been transfixed by and “picked up on”: Candy
Darling, Joe Dallesandro (Little Joe) and Joseph
Campbell (the Sugar Plum Fairy) were members
of Warhol’s pansexual ‘superstar’ parade. This
coterie of actors, artists, transvestites, junkies
and wannabes was both eulogised and mildly
mocked by the song’s taunting, partly ironic title.
“If I retire now,” Reed said soon after its success,
having evidently warmed to it, “Walk On The
Wild Side is the one I’d want to be known by, my
masterpiece. I found the secret with that song.
That’s the one that’ll make them forget Heroin.”
In fact, his new teenage audience in Britain,
buying it because Bowie endorsed it, had never
ALL PHOTOS © COPYRIGHT MICK ROCK, 2017. USED WITH PERMISSION.
heard of Heroin, and at that time barely registered
the Velvets. Transformer served as a gateway drug.
With radio DJs too naïve or dense to notice the
sex and drugs references, the single climbed to
No.10 in the UK – albeit six months later – and
broke in America. Herbie Flowers’s upright bass
slide, baritone sax from Ronnie Ross (Bowie’s sax
teacher) and the ‘coloured girls’ going ‘doo, da-doo’
allowed Reed’s narration to drip with presence. He
would pick the bones of New York for lyrical ideas
ever more throughout a career of glorious highs
Mick Rock’s iconic shot of
Lou Reed that became the
cover of Transformer.
LOU REED
Hangin’ ’round: Reed in
his trademark black.
and intriguing not-so-highs – not least on 1989’s
New York – but this inked his identity.
Still in thrall to the bohemian preachings of
mentor-guru-poet Delmore Schwartz, he would
fret about “selling out”. Yet as his tones oozed and
seeped from radios around the world, the rare
blend of sarcasm and soul had the knock-on effect
of boosting the profile of Warhol’s loosely related
film trilogy Flesh, Heat and Trash. A debt repaid.
Warhol had also helped the genesis of Vicious, the
album’s firm yet feathery opener. He’d suggested
the title, adding, “You know, vicious, like: I hit you
with a flower.” Ronson eases the riff along but goes
for a flailing Moonage Daydream-style wig-out over
the fade. To Lester Bangs, Reed declared it “a hate
song”, adding: “I drink constantly.”
O
n an otherwise
deftly produced
album, Vicious is “WALK ON THE WILD
oddly tame and muddy, but
we do get the first dose of SIDE IS THE ONE I’D
the pop-operatic backing
vocals from Bowie and
WANT TO BE KNOWN
female duo Thunderthighs, BY, MY MASTERPIECE.”
which became such a key
feature of Transformer. The
nursery rhymes from purgatory continue with
Andy’s Chest – which Reed said was about Warhol’s
shooting by Valerie Solanas, “even though the
lyrics don’t sound like it”. He’d recorded it with the
Velvets in 1969, but the Brits pulled back the tempo
and highlighted the macabre imagery – bats,
rattlesnakes, bloodsuckers.
The new verse about Daisy May’s bellybutton
becoming her mouth was one step above music
hall, and Reed confessed that he didn’t know
what it meant. ‘Swoop, swoop! Rock, rock!’ went those
multitracked backing vocals, as Bowie and Scott
enacted their current obsession with a kind of
postmodern doo-wop.
It’s easy to forget now that Perfect Day was
‘just’ the hit’s B-side (technically the single was
a double A-side). Its surreal 90s crossover success
as a family-favourite BBC commercial featuring
Boyzone and Pavarotti meant that “twenty-five
80 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Wild side: Reed, Mick
Jagger and David Bowie.
years on, it became even bigger than Wild Side ever
was”, chuckled Reed. “Go figure.”
Back in 1972, it was already confusing and
confounding people. Was this a beautiful, sincere
love ballad or a subversive hymn to smack? If the
former, its tenderness – ‘drink sangria in the park,
feed animals in the zoo’ – felt authentic, topped by
the Supremes-referencing ‘you keep me hanging
on’. Others insisted it was a dedication to Bettye
Kronstadt, whom Reed – for all this album’s overt
sexual ambiguity – married in ’73. Either way,
Ronson’s strings and piano capture the grandeur
and frailty of falling in love. Even Reed was full of
wonder for them. Cast against type here, he was
someone else, someone good. “I’m really very
inconsistent,” he muttered.
He’s on more familiar ground in Hangin’ ’Round,
its prickly put-downs laid
down not long after Bowie
and Ronson had bashed
out Chuck Berry’s Round
And Round. Make Up is fairly
difficult to misinterpret:
‘We’re coming out, out of our
closets’ was a slogan the Gay
Liberation movement had
adopted as a global rallying
call. This tough guy’s paean to lip gloss and perfume
is enhanced by Herbie Flowers’s tuba obbligato.
Wagon Wheel and I’m So Free are conventional
guitar chuggers that coast happily on the goodwill
generated by the album around them: you can
sense Ronson and Bowie trying a few minor twists
to jazz them up.
Satellite Of Love, however, is another message
from the gods. The piano-driven
arrangement, with finger-
clicks and those backing
vocals, echoes Drive-In
Saturday. Bowie soars
stratospherically over
the coda. Ken Scott has
revealed that they could
have made this climax
even more huge with what
Bowie sang on mic, but the
star insisted that this album had better be about
Lou, not him. Reed acknowledged the majesty of
this section.
“It’s not the kind of part I could ever have
come up with, even if you’d left me alone with
a computer programme for a year. But David hears
those parts, plus he’s got a freaky voice and can go
that high. It’s very, very beautiful.”
The song in itself is no slouch, its sweetness
turning sour through jealousy and paranoia. It
had been demoed by the Velvets during the Loaded
sessions, but nothing like this. The narrator’s
comatose wonderment at technology – ‘I like to
watch things on TV’ – seemed to hint at Warhol’s
I-am-a-machine passivity then, but seems spookily
prescient now. Addiction in another form.
New York Telephone Conversation is a gossipy send-
up of Warhol’s diaries, while the old-time jazz of
Goodnight Ladies is the antithesis, except for the
cynicism, of the Velvets. Reed was imagining his
interior life as a nocturnal, nightmarish cabaret.
Indeed, on his next masterpiece, Berlin, he forsake
these producers’ pop arrangements that dressed
his vignettes of sickly city life and gambled on
what Bob Ezrin called “a film for the ears”. Perhaps
he resented the kudos afforded his collaborators
here. “He’s very clever,” he snarled of Bowie. “He
learned how to be hip. Associating his name with
me brought his name to a lot more people.”
Mercurial as ever, he later asserted, “I love
him. He’s very good in the studio. The kid’s got
everything. Everything.”
Lou Reed changed his mind about Transformer,
the album that made him a big noise and rebooted
that autobiography, more times than he changed
shirts. On its 25th-anniversary reissue in 1997, he
commissioned me to write sleeve-notes, only to
nix them because, in a fit of revisionism, he didn’t
want any mention, however passing, of “sexual
experimentation”. Seven years later he told me he
was thinking of remixing it. “That oughta be fun.
We could put Bowie’s saxophone right at the back.
We could mess around a whole lot.”
Such mischief. Today, on its 45th anniversary
(with a lavish Mick Rock photography book
released to celebrate) it’s safe to say most of us
haven’t changed our minds: it’s a louche, landmark
ALL PHOTOS © COPYRIGHT MICK ROCK, 2017. USED WITH PERMISSION.
album that changed – transformed, as in
increased the voltage of – his
life, and countless others.
Transformer by Lou Reed
And Mick Rock, the
limited edition book, is
available from Genesis
Publications at www.
transformerbook.com.
Tel: +44 (0)1483 540 970.
 148 PAGES
THE COMP !
LE
ZEP STORYTE

Ordering is easy – go online at

www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk
or get it from selected supermarkets & newsagents
 p 92
Europe
On the rocks? No, they’ve just
released their best album
since the band’s 2003 return.

Classic Rock Ratings Ingredients:

QQQQQQQQQQ A Classic
QQQQQQQQQQ
QQQQQQQQQQ
Excellent
Very Good
p86 Albums
QQQQQQQQQQ Good p96 Reissues
QQQQQQQQQQ Above Average
QQQQQQQQQQ Average p102 Buyer’s Guide
QQQQQQQQQQ Below Par
QQQQQQQQQQ A Disappointment p104 DVDs & Books
QQQQQQQQQQ Pants
QQQQQQQQQQ Pish

18 PAGES 100% ROCK

Edited By Ian Fortnam ian.fortnam@futurenet.com

CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 85
 MADS PERCH/PRESS
PERCH/P
PERCH/
MADS PERCH
PRESS
UMS

86 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
ALB

Robert Plant
Carry Fire NONESUCH/WARNER BROS
Eleventh solo album with the Sensational Space
Shifters, featuring a duet with Chrissie Hynde.
M
aybe it’s the times we live in,
with the knowledge and diverse
resources available to musicians,
but despite the parlous state of the industry,
for veterans with more than a scintilla of
curiosity, age is not necessarily a process
of inevitable artistic deterioration. Robert
Plant has just turned 69 and there’s
a distinctly melancholic, late autumnal feel
to some of the lyrics on Carry Fire. However,
in its intricate, hybrid weave of folk, rock,
North African rhythms and stylings, and
even discreet fibres of electronica, this
album represents a higher creative point
than, say, his somewhat poodle-haired
solo work of the early 1980s.
Carry Fire once more features the
Sensational Space Shifters, whose slightly
cheery moniker belies their excellence.
Their instrumental contribution is worth
listing in full as it conveys not just the
credits but the
flavours of the
album’s bill of fare.
There’s John Baggott
‘As good an album
(keyboards, Moog, as we could expect
loops, percussion,
drums, brass from Plant in 2017.’
arrangement, t’bal,
snare drum, slide guitar, piano, electric
piano, bendir); Justin Adams (guitar,
acoustic guitar, oud, E-bow quartet,
percussion, snare drum, tambourine); Dave
Smith (bendir, tambourine, djembe, drum
kit); and Liam ‘Skin’ Tyson (dobro, guitar,
acoustic guitar, pedal steel, twelve-string).
Albanian cellist Redi Hasa performs on
three tracks, as does Seth Lakeman on
viola and fiddle.
Their interplay is evident immediately
on The May Queen, in which Moog synth
drones, Arabic percussion, russet hints
of folk and a palpable boogie pulse mix
naturally, evoking a sense of a mature
and distilled contemporary blend rather
than the tired, dated feel that hampers the
releases of other eminent 60-somethings.
Most noticeable is Plant’s voice. It may
be that he simply can’t scale the vocal
heights of his youth. It’s commendable,
however, that he doesn’t merely attempt
to recycle the 70s Plant tricks and tropes as
a mere exercise in preserving the Robert
Plant Brand. His voice has developed into
something quite different with age: smoky,
intimate, delicate, hankering, with none of
the epic, blues-orientated screeching that
was once his stock-in-trade.
It’s an approach that suits the likes of
Season’s Song, one of a number that seem
to speak of an old romantic increasingly
aware of his own mortality: ‘My senses
have escaped me/My mind is on the run.’ The
arrangement patters discreetly like snow
on a window pane.
Still, there’s life in the old dog. New
World… is announced by a heavy, billowing
guitar intro, crashing onto a ‘virgin shore’.
The allusion to ‘immigrant’ is one of a few
fragmentary Zeppelin references that
blow back on the winds of these songs,
adding to a sense of Plant as a figure etched
and weathered by great adventures from
long ago, unsure how many lie ahead of
him. Dance With You Tonight dramatically
exacerbates that sense, haunted by the
backward taping on the soundtrack.
This, however, is an album rooted in
the present day. Carving Up The World Again
…A Wall And Not A Fence feels explicitly
geopolitical, with its Native American-
style drum beats. Guitars breaking over
the horizon are
a reminder that
this album isn’t
entirely an exercise
in contemporary
fusion. Rock
courses through
it, as is further
evident on the rumbling Bones Of Saints,
and Plant’s defiant refrain of ‘No, no, no!’
That said, Plant shows a great grasp
of modern atmospheres on A Way
With Words, as if such an understanding
comes with experience. There’s the
evocation of evening clouds drifting,
night insects gathering in the warm dusk,
memories rearing – the unique emotional
intensity of late middle age. The title
track, meanwhile, is practically a sonic
transcription of a Marrakesh that’s still
bustling at sunset, traditional instruments
plucked beneath starry skies of synth.
There’s a sole cover version – Ersel
Hickey’s Bluebirds Over The Mountain –
which is given a revved-up treatment,
with a sawn-off riff and percussive drive
fit to rattle the remains of John Bonham.
Chrissie Hynde provides guest vocals,
and it’s a sign of something or other that
in 2017 their vocals actually sound more
similar than you might expect, as if to
suggest that everyone eventually arrives
in the same place.
That is a somewhat romantic idea
– rock has its fair share of stragglers and
casualties. But as for Plant, the truth is that
Carry Fire is about as good an album as we
could reasonably expect from him in 2017.
QQQQQQQQQQ
David Stubbs
Brand New
Science Fiction
PROCRASTINATE! MUSIC TRAITORS
Farewell album from Long
Island alt.rockers.
Arriving as an emo band in
2000, Brand New have since
sculpted their sound and
indulged their ambitions to
create a niche for themselves in
the pantheon of alternative rock.
With Science Fiction, their
first album in eight years and
the last before they will split in
2018, they have written their
own eulogy. Seething with
anxiety and frontman Jesse
Lacey’s trademark sarcastic
self-flagellation, and with a
gorgeous production that gives
the music space to breathe, it’s
an emotional, intelligent work of
grace and beauty.
Early growing pains have been
replaced with the older and
wiser Lacey’s view of the big
picture, the spiderweb-delicate
Could Never Be Heaven taking
a distinctly grown-up look at
the nature of relationships.
And when they let loose and
allow guitarist Vinnie Accardi
to stretch himself, as on the
sprawling, grunge-meets-prog
137, the power they possess is
almost physically palpable.
Goodbyes are never easy, but
they’re going out on a high, on
their own terms, leaving us with
genuine musical treasure to
remember them by.
QQQQQQQQQQ
Emma Johnston
Sons Of Apollo
Psychotic Symphony
INSIDE OUT MUSIC
All-star progressive metal
troupe deliver the goods.
The rogues gallery of ‘usual
culprits’ cast in Sons Of
Apollo invites two iron-clad
certainties: guaranteed virtuoso
musicianship and a healthy dose
of cynicism.
Uniting members past and
present of Dream Theater, Guns
N’ Roses, Mr Big and Journey,
Sons Of Apollo succeed in
the proficiency stakes but,
unusually, they’ve crafted an
exceptional debut to shoot
down all suggestions of fiscal
opportunism, convenience or,
God forbid, lethargy or laziness.
Former DT alumni Mike
Portnoy and Derek Sherinian
bring the inevitable prog
element, with Billy Sheehan
and Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal
administering a hummable
hard-rock twist, but the bridge
linking those two styles, the
factor that brings everything to
life, is Jeff Scott Soto. JSS was
the wrong singer for Journey
but he sounds magnificent here.
Fuck the term ‘supergroup’:
that’s not what this is about.
Sons Of Apollo are simply
a group that are super.
QQQQQQQQQQ
Dave Ling
Steve Hill
Solo Recordings Volume 3
NO LABEL
Roll over, Don Partridge.
If this is Vol 3, then Montreal
one-man blues band Steve Hill is
not a novelty one-off. It may be
a low-fi experience and you may
have heard many of these riffs
before, but you can’t fault Hill’s
committed determination or
his talents as a performer.
The gruff boogie of Damned
and the mud-stirring Dangerous
set up the album’s hard-rocking
credentials, and Hill has clearly
learnt from the masters, from
Hendrix onwards. Subtle it ain’t,
but he can certainly play, as the
acoustic love song Emily and his
dextrous take on Going Down The
Road Feeling Bad clearly show.
The niggling thought remains:
how good would he be as
a singer/guitarist in a band?
QQQQQQQQQQ
Hugh Fielder
Bigfoot
Bigfoot FRONTIERS MUSIC
Hard rockers pumped up
and primed.
A five-piece
band from
Wigan, Bigfoot
have spent the
past three years
pounding their way round the
club circuit. Tellingly, though,
every time they’ve stepped out
onto a festival stage, they’ve left
their mark.
You don’t have to get far into
their debut album to work out
why – their full-on, well-honed
hard rock would rouse and focus
any sluggish mid-afternoon
crowd. Commanding vocals,
a twin guitar attack that meshes
fierce staccato rhythms and
lightning lead guitar lines, and
a stomping beat all combine to
grab your attention. And they
hold it through killer tracks like
The Fear, Karma and Eat Your
Words, swaggering showpieces
like Freak Show and Prisoner Of
War, and anthemic, harmony-
drenched power ballads like
Forever Alone and The Devil In Me.
They have a broad range of
styles – too broad maybe. They
need to hone in on what they’re
best at and concentrate on that.
QQQQQQQQQQ
Hugh Fielder
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 87
ALBUMS
Ronnie Montrose
10x10 RHINO
Hit-and-miss collection of the late
guitar maestro’s unfinished works.
T
his writer was lucky enough to
see legendary guitarist Ronnie
Montrose play live three times:
with his band Montrose at Charlton FC’s
stadium in 1974, opening for The Who;
at London’s Rainbow Theatre in 1975 on
the Warner Brothers Music Show tour,
supporting the Doobie Brothers; and
with his post-Montrose band Gamma,
at the old Hammy Odeon in 1981.
But I’d be lying if I said any of these
shows was a life-changing experience.
Ronnie may have been a giant talent
but he had a capricious demeanour
and an understated stage presence.
Indeed, he soon became frustrated by
the limitations of traditional hard rock
music and explored different avenues.
Open Fire, his jazz-infused solo album,
was inspired by Jeff Beck’s Blow By Blow;
the third Gamma record was largely
influenced by Kraftwerk. Ronnie began
to feel more comfortable in his axe-slinger
skin later in life but clearly not comfortable
enough: he shot himself dead in 2012.
This posthumous release has good
times, bad times. Ronnie had been
working on songs with Styx bassist Ricky
Phillips and Kiss drummer Eric Singer
before his demise. Phillips completed
work on the project, enlisting friends
and collaborators to flesh out the basics,
and it’s the contributions of Ronnie’s
88 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
closest associates that make the most
sense. Standout track Color Blind, with
an outstanding performance by original
Montrose vocalist Sammy ‘Sam’ Hagar,
fair brings a tear to the eye. It’s low-key,
sparse but triumphant, and includes the
bittersweet words ‘live forever, never get old’.
Similarly, Love Is An Art, with Edgar
Winter on vocals and saxophone, has
a wacky 1970s vibe, Winter’s croaking
proving only a minor distraction. And as
for the rollicking Any Minute, Mark Farner
of Grand Funk Railroad pulls off a vocal
performance that almost defies belief.
But there are problems. You’re never
too sure whether Ronnie is playing or
whether guests such as Steve Lukather or
Rick Derringer are involved. Our guess
is that the essential guitar parts are by
Mr Montrose, with the solos added later.
And then there are the hangers-on,
the guys whose connection with Ronnie
lack that umbilical-cord vibe. Still Singin’
With The Band is the worst culprit – you
can’t help but feel that Glenn Hughes and
Phil Collen were only there for the kudos.
The same goes for Joe Bonamassa on The
Kingdom’s Come Undone.
This could have been a better testament
to Ronnie Montrose’s legacy but, equally,
it could have been a helluva lot worse.
QQQQQQQQQQ
Geoff Barton
David Crosby
Sky Trails BMG
Redoubtable former Byrd still
soaring high.
Post-CSN, one of the more
gratifying stories of late is the
re-emergence of David Crosby
as a solo force. 2014’s Croz was
his first album for a couple of
decades, followed two years
later by Lighthouse. Now comes
Sky Trails, a record that suggests
the 76-year-old’s muse is still
in close attendance. Crosby, for
his part, puts this new-found
proliferation down to “a lot of
pent-up creative juice”.
Unlike the mostly acoustic-led
Lighthouse, Sky Trails finds him
in full band mode, engaging in
a nuanced blend of folk, soul
and jazz that echoes vintage
triumphs like Guinnevere and
Déjà Vu. Indeed, he reaches
back into the 60s for Before
Tomorrow Falls On Love,
a Michael McDonald co-write
that asks what happened to
that brave new world they once
talked about, amid reflections
of flickering candlelight and
careless free love.
One of several songs
co-created with producer and
son James Raymond, who
also leads the band, the soft
undulations of Capitol spike
into bilious anger as Crosby
takes aim at political corruption
in the White House.
Ultimately, however, he
appears to be a contented
man, from the radiant title
track (a great duet with Becca
Stevens) to the domestic
paradise evoked in Home Free.
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Rob Hughes
Stan Bush
Change The World L.A.
The 80s never went away.
Stan Bush unashamedly makes
albums that belong in the 1980s.
He eschews all aspects of
modern rock because he feels
comfortable in that era. So if you
enjoy the melodic hard rock of
that period then this album is
most definitely for you.
Bush writes neatly evocative
power ballads (The Story Of Love,
The Secret) and also uptempo
anthems (Warrior, Born To Win)
and delivers both of these styles
with equal flair and enthusiasm.
Never overcomplicating what
he does, Bush is simply out to
entertain in the same manner
that has been his trademark
now for 35 years.
He also revisits arguably his
two most famous songs, namely
The Touch and Dare, which first
came to prominence in 1986’s
The Transformers: The Movie.
Neither are done differently
to the original versions, so
it’s hard to understand quite
why he’s done it. Still, this is
an enjoyable retro romp.
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Malcolm Dome
The
Necromancers
Servants Of The
Salem Girl RIPPLE
French occultist quartet’s
splendidly diabolical debut.
Devil-fancying
in heavy rock
has been out
of fashion
ever since
those pesky church-burning
Norwegians started actually
taking it seriously in the early
90s. But if anyone can bring it
back into vogue, it’s this fiendish
foursome from Poitiers.
Recently signed to US label
Ripple, they prove on this six-
track debut that there are still
a fair stock of tunes in Lucifer’s
long-neglected locker.
Salem Girl Part I and Black
Marble House benefit from
magnificently Maiden-esque
twin guitar stings as they
channel elements of goth
portentousness, doomy vocal
grunt and vintage melodic
flair. Elsewhere, Grand Orbiter
lurches between high-octane
tritone-centric heaviness and
atmospheric incantations,
creating a sound as wealthy and
tasteful as Old Nick himself.
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Johnny Sharp
Walter Trout
We’re All In This Together
PROVOGUE
All-star all-clear for blues king.
Trout’s albums
either side of
a life-saving,
gruelling liver
operation in
2014 dug deep into his personal
blues. We’re All In This Together
now looks determinedly
outward, bringing in friends such
as Joe Bonamassa and John
Mayall to address what Trout
calls “this time of madness”.
On the Kenny Wayne
Shepherd-assisted opener Gonna
Hurt Like Hell, Trout warns his
fellow Americans of the brand
of political snake oil currently on
offer: ‘Don’t you go buying/What
they’re trying to sell.’ An hour
RONNIE MONTROSE: GETTY
later, the man who could barely
lift a guitar three years ago is
bringing the album to a storming
close with Bonamassa on the
healing title track.
 Elsewhere, the Trout band’s
straight-up blues boogie backs
Charlie Musselwhite’s swampy
harmonica wail and Mayall’s
country blues harp-blowing.
Amid an understandable
overdose of twin-guitar action,
Joe Louis Walker’s bright tone
and liquid, skipping flow help
Trout prove that the blues can
still be powerfully individual.
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Nick Hasted
Lionize
Nuclear Soul THE END
Rock and soul sing out on
band’s latest album.
Lionize are
probably best
known here
as Clutch’s
contemporaries
and support act (they were also
signed to Clutch’s Weathermaker
label), though their history
stretches back over a decade
and includes stints working in
Jamaica with Steel Pulse.
Their reggae roots are less
evident here with a sound that’s
as much Thin Lizzy and Free as
it is Solomon Burke and rhythm
and blues.
It’s a heady combination
topped off by the distinctive,
smoky and occasionally raw
vocals of diminutive vocalist
Nate Bergman (think Patton
Oswalt with Paul Rodgers
pipes), who croons, burns and
beats his way through a slew
of songs, buoyed along on the
ROUND-UP: SLEAZE
THE CURSE: MICKE KEYSENDAL/PRESS
swirl of a Hammond organ and
a thrashing snare drum.
They know when to lay off the
gas too, Bergman’s soulful chops
brought to bear on the aching
Ain’t It A Shame and the thrilling
Let You Down, where he gets to
channel his inner Joe Cocker.
To call the whole thing
life-affirming would be to
understate it somewhat.
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Philip Wilding
Thunderstick
Something Wicked
This Way Comes SELF-RELEASED
Stickin’ with the schtick.
You might
remember
Thunderstick
as the gimp-
masked lunatic
drummer from NWOBHM
legends Samson. If you don’t,
I suggest you read a history book.
After Samson frontman Bruce
Bruce (Dickinson) flapped off
to Iron Maiden, the mighty
’Stick (born Barry Graham
Purkis) formed an eponymous
band, and while their ’84 debut
Feels Like Rock ’n’ Roll was an
audacious and raucous display
of horror-glam, the band never
quite caught fire.
But the dream never died, and
here we are, 35 years later, with
a new line-up and a new album.
How’s it sound? Like 1980,
magnificently enough.
Thunderstick’s new vocalist,
Lucie V (replacing classic-era
The Curse:
all meat, no flab.
frontwoman Jodee Valentine,
who tragically passed away last
year) sounds like a teenage Brian
Connolly, and the band vacillate
between the hard-hitting glam
rock of late-era Sweet and the
crunchy riffola of NWOBHM.
It’s basically the imaginary
soundtrack to some long-lost
VHS-era video nasty. Couldn’t
be more true to form.
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Sleazegrinder
Otherkin
OK RUBYWORKS
Melodic Dublin indie rockers.
The sensational sounds of
Britpop, Britrock, grunge
and all those other musical
demi-mondes that soundtracked
the turn of the last century
may be old enough to apply for
official Heritage Rock status a
couple of decades on, but this
Irish four-piece still make a good
stab at making them sound
contemporary. They prove that
if you have enough youthful
energy and conviction, nothing
ever sounds old.
The feisty brushes of Strokes
and splashes of elegantly wasted
Libertines cool on Treat Me So Bad
and Ay Ay convince just as well
as the grunge groan of Enabler
and the Elastica-esque jerks of
Razorhead. They’re no slouches
when it comes to festival tent-
rocking choruses either, as Feel It
and Come On, Hello prove.
Sure, they don’t have the kind
of left-field originality or artistic
The Curse
Calcutta Sunrise
BELUGA/GHOST HIGHWAY
People sometimes
forget, but like 20
years ago, Scandinavia
saved rock’n’roll. I mean,
it was pretty grim out
there in 1999, an endless, numbing void
of nu metal and pseudo-industrial pop
and washed-out has-beens before the
Hellacopters, Gluecifer and Turbonegro
rode in on their longboats and
straightened us all the fuck out.
The Curse follow in their fine ankle-
booted footsteps with this effortlessly
confident display of Swedish action rock,
all snarls and switchblades and tight
denim and sex-soaked rifforama.
Calcutta Sunrise is the band’s third
album and it’s a total jammer from end
to end. The beauty of The Curse is that
they get how rock’n’roll works – every
song’s got a hook and they get in and
out in two minutes flat.
It’s all meat, no flab, and it ain’t pretty,
either – every song is either about
some dick they know (No Doubt About
You, King Of Irritation) or some ruined
party (City Of The Dead, Let’s Settle The
Score). An instant classic.
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quirks that would earn them
effusive coverage in broadsheet
arts pages, but they’ve got all
the credentials to attract legions
of sweaty pop pickers into their
all-inclusive moshpit.
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Johnny Sharp
Arcane Roots
Melancholia Hymns
EASY LIFE/RED ESSENTIAL
Proggy drama from the
ambitious Brit trio.
It’s all about the
atmosphere for
Kingston Upon
Thames three-
piece Arcane
Roots, whose second album has
a sense of scope and grandiosity
that places them somewhere
between the prog theatricality
of Muse and the lush sonic
tapestries of Sigur Rós, except
they’re subtler, fresher and
ultimately much less ludicrous
than either of those bands.
It’s been a four-year wait
for the follow-up to Blood
& Chemistry, and they’ve clearly
used that time to learn all there
is to know about electronic
instrumentation, with skittish
beats and swells of synths
providing a dramatic foil to
frontman Andrew Groves’
high, keening vocals and the
meaty, no-nonsense rock riffs
at the heart of all the bluster.
One moment they’re raging
on a string-laden Apt, the next
they’re building a more subtle
Juliette Seizure And
The Tremor Dolls
Seizure Salad JULIETTESEIZUREAND
THETREMOR-DOLLS.BANDCAMP.COM
If everything that you
loved about rock’n’roll
never died then
I suppose every band
would sound kinda like
the Tremor Dolls. But we live in a cruel and
savage world so thank Christ Juliette and
the gang are flying the flag for snotty,
bubblegummy, glammy, pogo-ready punk.
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Overdrivers
Rockin’ Hell
OVERDRIVERSROCK.BANDCAMP.COM
I can’t fault a band with
hilariously primitive
album art, and who
rewrite mid-80s
AC/DC songs over
and over again. They have a song called
Dirty Girl’s Island, for Chrissakes. They
also have a song called She Has A Big
Packet. Do they mean package? Is it
a drag-queen song? I dunno. They’re
French as fuck, if that helps. Love it.
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kind of tension on the creepingly
sinister Fireflies. In keeping with
its long gestation period, this is
music built to last.
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Emma Johnston
Gizmodrome
Gizmodrome EARMUSIC
All-star virtuosi find their
radical grooves.
’Supergroups’ aren’t supposed
to sound this fresh. Stewart
Copeland (ex-Police), Mark King
(Level 42) and Adrian Belew
(ex-almost everybody – King
Crimson, Bowie, Talking Heads)
join with Italian keyboard whizz
Vittorio Cosma (ex-PFM) in
a Milan studio and have a whale
of a time. A cue for indulgent
muso jamming? Not here, as the
four clearly get a buzz from their
chemistry and do very strange
things with Copeland’s innately
peculiar songs.
It’s a blitz of funky punky
prog-reggae fusion (yes, that’s
a thing, or at least it is now),
and the playing is of course
ludicrously impressive. What
keeps the energy moving is
Copeland’s bizarre vocal persona
as a kind of horny preacher man,
testifying to the travails – and
fun – of ageing and travel.
That King-Copeland rhythm
section’s a bit handy too. They
occasionally skid off, but most of
this album is playful, pugnacious
and pleasingly unglued.
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Chris Roberts
By Sleazegrinder
Johnny 2 Fingers
& The Deformities
Built To Rock ’N Roll
JOHNNY2FINGERS.BANDCAMP.COM
If we’re being technical
about it, he’s actually
Johnny 7 Fingers, but it
is true that he’s only got
a couple on his pickin’
hand. Doesn’t matter – he doesn’t need
the rest to rock. Straight outta Moose
Jaw, Johnny and his Deformities bang
out a fistful of raucous party-starters.
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Swingin’ Bitch
Swingin’ Bitch
SWINGIN-BITCH.BANDCAMP.COM
Remember back in
’83 when Tom Warrior
played his Venom 45s
at 33rpm and invented
Hellhammer after
hearing the Satanic sludge that oozed out
of the speakers? I think these dudes did
the same thing with their Screamin’ Jay
Hawkins singles. This is an incredible display
of doomy teenage dirtbag puke-blooze.
Blood Weep is a fucking masterpiece.
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CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 89
ALBUMS
The Professionals
What In The World AUTOMATON
No Steve Jones, but never mind,
this is the bollocks.
L
et’s get one thing straight right from
the start: rather than pulling his full
weight as guitar and vocal frontman,
Steve Jones merely strops his strings in
a trio of guest star cameos here. This is
news that’ll doubtless cause a widespread
raising of eyebrows within the global
punk community. Not that jukeboxer
Jonesy can’t be arsed to tear himself away
from LA radio fame, but because the crib-
note version of rock history tells us The
Professionals were dynamic duo Steve
Jones and Paul Cook, rebranded in the
wake of the Sex Pistols tsunami, and
without the iconic guitarist on board,
what’s left? Punk Ringo?
As is often the case, the airbrushing
shorthand of rock 101 ill-serves actuality,
and any punk specialist worth their salt
will tell you The Professionals amounted
to way more than a notional post-Pistol
whim of Cook and Jones. Among the
smack ’n’ mayhem, of which there was
much, were a band of no little potential,
and their core (Cook, sometimes Jones,
stalwart ex-Subway Sect bassist Paul
Myers) are back for a second crack. With
a little help from their friends.
Upfront, manfully accepting the dual
challenge of replicating Jones’s
magnetically alluring yob charm and
seismic humbucking bollocks, is Tom
Spencer, whose fierce, deliberate vocal
90 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
masculinity occasionally overshoots the
runway of mere machismo into the chest-
beating Animalistic arena of the Anti
Nowhere League, but there’s always room
for a choking fug of testosterone in a band
fronted briefly by Ray Winstone.
Obviously, adequate though Tom’s
riffing is, one all-singing strummer could
never serve up the matchless testicular
fortitude of Jones and absent wingman
Ray McVeigh. So Paul Cook – amenable
chap that he is – opened his bulging
address book and, with minimal
persuasion, coaxed Guns N’ Roses’ Duff
McKagan, Def Leppard’s Phil Collen, The
Cult’s Billy Duffy, ex-Clash Mick Jones,
ex-Ant Marco Pirroni and, fresh from
working a little live magic, ex-3 Colours
Red socialite Chris McCormack, to
conjure up a requisitely throbbing
scrotum-full of ballsiness.
And they all deliver. In spades. This
clearly represents a dream gig for the
recruits and one they clearly relish. All tap
into their inner Steve Jones, especially the
man himself (though Collen shines by
staying truest to his signature style) and
with Cook and Myers rock solid in the
engine room, production crucially tight
and material strong, the results are simply
spectacular.
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Ian Fortnam
Oh Sees
Orc CASTLE FACE
Lysergic emanations from
behind the garage door.
Despite a Whovian approach to
nomenclature – they’ve been the
Oh Sees, The Ohsees and Thee
Oh Sees among many, many
others – the one constant to Oh
Sees and bandleader John
Dwyer has been their evangelical
fervour in the cause of gloriously
deviant rock’n’roll. And so it goes
with Orc, the band’s 19th album
in as many years. Yet anyone
expecting a straightforward thrill
ride of buzz-saw nuggets is in for
a kaleidoscopic wake-up call.
As evidenced by the band’s
summer rampage across any
number of European festivals
they laid waste to, not only have
Oh Sees increased their rhythmic
attack in the form of the twin
drum onslaught of Dan Rincon
and Paul Quattrone, they’ve also
ramped up the cosmic flourishes
to brain-scrambling levels.
While the sonic hooliganism of
The Static God snaps and snarls
with an economic fury and Nite
Expo grooves with intent and
menace, Keys To The Castle finds
Oh Sees brewing up a potent
and intoxicating potion of garage
ramalama, prog rock and
psychedelia that’s a trip in its
own right. Likewise the synapse-
frying madness of Paranoise.
Thoroughly anti-social and
wonderfully obnoxious
throughout, this is kick-arse
psych’n’roll as it should be.
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Julian Marszalek
Sons Of Texas
Forged By Fortitude
SPINEFARM
Bruising melodic metal from
the Lone Star state.
Album number
two and these
heavyweight
southern-fried
rockers are
making themselves firmly at
home in the groove they cut with
2015’s Baptized.
Drawing comparisons with
Pantera was inevitable then,
and so it is now as vocalist Mark
Morales unleashes some
uncannily Phil Anselmo-esque
throat aggro on vicious opener
Buy In To Sell Out and the title
track, over a juddering, squealing
guitar barrage. In reality, though,
these blasts of ornery violence
are just one aspect of a sound
that owes as much to
commercial nu metal and radio-
friendly grunge; for the most
part the focus is on melody as
Beneath The Riverbed, Turnin’ The
Page and Cast In Stone pile on the
emotional drama and catchy
choruses. There’s even time for a
bit of salacious slap and tickle on
cheeky ZZ Top-referencing Slam
With The Lights On, the crazy
romantic fools.
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Essi Berelian
L.A. Guns
The Missing Peace FRONTIERS
The classic line-up lives to
(gun)fight another day.
L.A. Guns’
storied history
as Hollywood’s
scrappiest
shoulda-beens
is at the same time awe-
inspiring and exhausting. How
in the world co-founder/sole
survivor Tracii Guns has
managed to keep this train
a rollin’ for almost 35 years and
11 albums is anyone’s guess, but
clearly he’s not finished yet.
Most folks would agree that
L.A. Guns were at their best in
the late 80s when Phil Lewis
sang for ‘em. And that’s what
you get here, a pretty fucking
glorious throwback to Cocked
And Loaded-era Guns, with all
the bombastic screamalong
choruses and dive-bombing
flash-guitar heroism you can
handle. Yes, to virgin ears it’ll
sound dated, but who cares?
There are plenty of Guns fans
still out there, and anybody who
loved Rip And Tear or Sex Action
are gonna love high-flying
rockers like Speed, Sticky Fingers
or It’s All The Same to Me on this
record. It’s a ripper.
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Sleazegrinder
Neil Finn
Out Of Silence LESTER
Easy on the ear, but nothing that
stands out from the Crowd.
Former
Crowded House
man Neil Finn
always wanted
to write a song
in the morning, record it in the
afternoon and release it that
night. Out Of Silence almost fulfils
that objective. Following four live
streams in August, the album
was mixed in Auckland and
ready to go.
Piano ballads and autumnal
reflections are at the heart of 10
orchestrated pieces. Love Is
Emotional and the possibly
apocalyptic More Than One Of
You set the standard on an
album that has the sonic feel of
a nightclub engagement;
percussive ticks, pedal noise and
whirring acoustic guitars add to
the flavour. Brother Tim pops in
for Alone, a naïve snapshot of life
in London with Split Enz. The city
was grey, buses bloodshot.
Independence Day is normal for
Neil: he tests the climate and the
atmospherics are depressing.
Terrorise Me, a response to the
Bataclan outrage, is the key
piece. The rest is no faffing and
easy listening.
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Max Bell
The War
On Drugs
A Deeper Understanding
ATLANTIC
Philadelphia singer-songwriter
plays it safe on fifth album.
Just as the
mainstream
will always
repackage the
underground,
in recent years the independent
sector has begun to return
the favour.
No one has benefited more
from this unlikely trend than The
War On Drugs (aka 38-year-old
singer-songwriter Adam
Granduciel). Catapulted from
indie obscurity to headlining
international festivals thanks to
the success of 2014’s Lost In
A Dream – a record which walked
a perilous high wire between
Dire Straits and Bruce Hornsby
– he now finds himself caught
between (soft) rock and a hard
place; should he continue on
the meandering path which
ROUND-UP: BLUES
PP Arnold: a stomping,
hollering soul-blues
master class.
PP Arnold
The Turning Tide
KUNDALINI MUSIC
It’s a shit business,
as The League Of
Gentlemen’s Les
McQueen had it, and
PP Arnold might
recognise the sentiment.
Spotted by Jagger, signed to
Immediate Records and groomed for
began with his 2008 debut
Wagonwheel Blues, or stick to
a winning formula?
Recorded in his adopted home
town of Los Angeles, his fifth
album plumps firmly for the
latter option. Opener Up All
Night moves through the
formulaic pop gears as smoothly
as Don Henley cruising along the
Pacific Coast Highway, while
Holding On is a slickly realised
mid-tempo foot tapper.
However, shorn of the novelty
factor, such middle-of-the-road
material remains better suited to
balmy summer nights and drive-
time radio than to repeated
home listening.
As a certain Mr Hornsby could
tell you, that’s just the way it is.
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Paul Moody
The Electric
Shakes
Electrohypnosis
THE ELECTRIC SHAKES
Fuzzy, bluesy Bournemouth
trio’s stout second.
The word
‘electric’ has
a faintly kitsch
ring to it these
days, but that
makes it all the more apposite
for this three-piece from Dorset,
who rustle up a fuzzy, hairy,
sweaty racket redolent of an age
when you could still get
electrocuted by your amplifier.
It’s no stylised retro-fest
worshipping the dust in the
stardom, the US soul singer’s 60s
fairytale turned grim when her RSO label
debut was shelved, leaving the tracks
scattered or gummed in red tape. Cue the
wilderness years…
Was it worth Arnold sacrificing four
decades of her life to reclaim The Turning
Tide? Christ, yes. This is a stomping,
hollering soul-blues master class, with
a tag-team production by Eric Clapton
and Barry Gibb that’s younger than
valves, though, as tracks such as
In The Blood and Rats skilfully
channel QOTSA’s druggy
urgency and minor-chord
melodic anxiety, and the
former’s fuzz-caked guitar motif
is instant earworm material.
Throughout, though, there’s
a satisfyingly organic garage
rumble to a sound that keeps on
gut-punching on the Stooges-
go-psychobilly stomp of Shot Me
Down and the MC5-ish thunder-
groove of Magpie.
Consider us shaken, and
comprehensively stirred.
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Johnny Sharp
Wayward Sons
Ghosts Of Yet To Come
FRONTIERS
Classic ideas repackaged.
Okay, forget about which bands
these guys have been in
previously, because it only
distracts from the present.
Because Wayward Sons is
a fresh start for all of the
members, and this album
sounds… well, fresh!
This is simple, irresistible
rock‘n’roll. There are nods to
Thin Lizzy (Be Still), Bad
Company (Give It Away) and Def
Leppard (Killing Time), but it’s all
done with such irrepressible
momentum that what’s here
transcends influences.
Toby Jepson is in fine voice,
guitarist Sam Wood cracks out
the vintage riffs, and the whole
portrait is of a band making their
yesterday. Lift-off is achieved with the
heartbeat bass and stinger guitars of
Medicated Goo, and Born is even better,
racing to a roaring finale that lets Arnold
clean her vocal chords. Elsewhere the
tears are still wet on torch songs like If
This Were My World and Brand New Day,
and there’s no cobwebs on a punched-up
You Can’t Always Get What You Want.
It’s the happiest of endings.
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own waves. The songs are well
constructed, with the emphasis
on giant choruses and propulsive
rhythms, and in Small Talk and
Something Wrong Wayward
Sons have two of the best new
songs you’ll hear in 2017.
There’s still room for
manoeuvre and improvement, of
course. Occasionally, as on
Ghost, they stumble a little, but
overall, Ghosts Of Yet To Come is
an album with pedigree.
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Malcolm Dome
Robin Beck
Love Is Coming FRONTIERS
Fizzy pop-hawking chanteuse’s
first album in four year.
Robin Beck will
forever be
known as ‘the
singer from that
Coca-Cola ad’.
While The First Time remains an
80s AOR classic, she’s had a
hard time matching that song’s
success in the ensuing decades.
New album Love Is Coming is
unlikely to shake off the ‘One Hit
Wonder’ tag, but she can take
solace in the fact that it’s a fine
record in its own right. Beck’s
fine-grained voice has lost none
of its belting power – On The
Bright Side is four minutes of
melodic rock brilliance. Better
still it has the kind of meaty
production (courtesy of Beck’s
husband James Christian) that
many latter-day hard rock
records lack.
Mollie Marriott
Truth Is A Wolf AMADEUS MUSIC
Steve Marriott’s third
daughter is shaping up
as the rock star progeny
to beat. The blues
informs her voice, but
new album Truth Is A Wolf strays beyond
it. There’s a haunted alt.rock slink to
Broken, Fortunate Fate could be a great lost
Pearl Jam song, Love Your Bones – an
affecting salute to a dying friend – is
a string-draped, music-box salute cut from
the same cloth as Tori Amos.
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Savoy Brown
Witchy Feelin’ RUF
It’s hands-down the
year’s spookiest album
sleeve, and on Witchy
Feelin’ Kim Simmonds is
plainly not afraid of the
dark. Thunder, Lightning & Rain is a rolling
black sea of wah-wah guitar, the lugubrious
title track creeps under your skin and Close
To Midnight is as bereft as they come. The
pick, though, is Why Did You Hoodoo Me,
a reminder that Simmonds is still a blues
guitarist from the top table.
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It doesn’t always hit home
– the cheese-ball funky rock of
Me Just Being Me veers too close
to Shania Twain territory – but
there’s enough here to indicate
that things don’t always go
better with Coke.
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Dave Everley
Orestea
Elements HTTP:SHOP.ORESTEA.COM/
Taking the emo way out.
Caught between
heading into the
alt.rock blue
yonder or
building up their
fan base, Guildford emo-
flavoured rockers Orestea have
chosen the latter course. After
all, they have the power chords,
the edgy, angular riffs and
impassioned vocals of Lisa Avon
to carry it off.
Dense, clattering drums and a
deep, resonant bass set up the
opening Welcome To Surviville
(sic), before Avon steams in
with the first of her strident,
harmonic hooks, with the rest of
the band catching up quickly. By
the time they reach the title song
on track three they’re seeing
how fierce they can be while
hanging on to the melodies.
But it’s the slow, bitter-sweet
Getaway and the enhanced
sounds on album closer Burning
Bridges that offer a more
distinctive way forward.
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Hugh Fielder
By Henry Yates
Gwyn Ashton
Solo Elektro SELF-RELEASED
Something of
a reinvention for the
Australian troubadour.
Solo Elektro might be
proudly raw as hell
– recording live in the studio, Ashton self-
flagellates both his voice box and guitar
to the point of abuse – but it’s ambitiously
written, with tracks running the gamut
between alt.blues, stoner rock and Eastern-
tinged, Lennon-voiced psychedelia. These
new clothes suit him.
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Long John
& The Killer
Blues Collective
Heavy Electric Blues OUTLAW
Long John Laundry’s
latest project is the
darkest shade of blues.
A growl and skudded
beat drive My Soul
Rising, before Preacher’s House pairs manic
piano to a feral delivery. Devil’s Train is jet-
black rockabilly, while Big Man’s Got A Fat
Chicken has the kind of barfly leer that gets
restraining orders taken out.
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CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 91
ALBUMS
Europe
Walk The Earth HELL & BACK
Europe’s best album since their 2003 return
shows the band confidently looking forward.
W
hen there’s a swelling
keyboard intro to this album
on the title track, you might
have thought that Europe were reverting
to the sound they had back in the late
80s. However, as the song opens up, it
becomes clear that this is definitely not
a band looking wistfully back to halcyon
days, but one that’s striding determinedly
forward on the strength of an edgy,
energetic, fresh perspective.
Ever since they reunited in 2003,
the Swedes have steered away from
their big hair reputation and cleared
out any notions of living off what they
achieved back then. Instead, they’ve
gone for a heavier, more lucid approach
that emulates their heroes, such as
UFO and Thin Lizzy.
This is the sixth studio album they’ve
done in this period, and the best so far.
For one thing, it’s a lot more natural,
allowing John Norum to stretch out on
guitar and for Joey Tempest to showcase
a voice that has grit and bite, as well as
huge melodic appeal.
You can hear this coming quickly
into focus on The Siege, which has
a hard timbre, yet also nods towards
the more Eastern refrains of Zeppelin,
thanks to some deft keyboard sweeps
from Mic Michaeli. And the darkly
adhesive Kingdom United allows the band
92 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
to amply feature some neat Norum
tricks, nestling alongside Michaeli’s
evocative punctuation.
The pace slows on Pictures, but this
is no soppy power ballad as it has an
underlying agitation, Europe emphasising
to us that they aren’t withdrawing into
the past. And Election Day quickly shakes
out the dust with some brisk work from
drummer Ian Haugland. Meanwhile,
Wolves has a deep-set, rumbling ire that
brings to mind the recent recordings from
Deep Purple, which is obviously no bad
thing at all, and GTO also has inferences
from Ian Gillan et al.
The best is saved for last, though,
as the epic album closer Turn To Dust
beautifully balances changes in pace and
mood on a song that manages to be both
tuneful yet also a little disconcerting.
This is where Europe reach a new level
of achievement, proving that they have
now brushed aside any remaining doubts
about their validity in the current era.
Walk The Earth is superbly produced
by Dave Cobb, who highlights all the
positive aspects of the band on an album
that brings up new aspects of endeavour
and creativity every time it’s played.
An excellent release from the renovated
and rejuvenated modern giants.
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Malcolm Dome
Motorpsycho
The Tower RUNE GRAMMAFON
Tower of power.
Named after
Russ Meyer’s
1965 sex-and-
splatter-fest,
Motorpsycho
have been Norway’s foremost
hard rock band since being
formed in 1989 by bassist-singer
Bent Saether and guitarist-
vocalist Hans Magnus Ryan,
releasing over 20 albums
(notably 1993’s Demon Box and
2006’s Black Hole/Blank Canvas).
Joined by new drummer
Tomas Jarmyr, this follow-up to
2016’s Here Be Monsters is epic
in every sense, its finely wrought
missives sometimes stretching
over 15 minutes and straddling
early Crimson-style monolithic
doom riffs, episodic Magma
complexity, psychedelic balladry
and stoner bludgeoning, topped
by harmonised vocals worthy of
Yes or CSN.
Full-bore blasters such as the
Satan’s penis-mongering The
Cuckoo, the Wagnerian swarm
of Bartok Of The Universe and
the 21st Century Schizoid Man-
recalling title track were recorded
at LA’s White Buffalo studio.
Calmer sessions at a Joshua Tree
recording ranch then allowed
more reflective outings such as
Stardust and The Maypole.
Most seat-clenching is the
colossal Van Der Graaf-style
dogfight of Ship Of Fools and
the cosmic extrapolations of
Intrepid Explorer, while A Pacific
Sonata star-sails transcendent
spaceways to vistas usually
traversed by Carlos Santana.
Motorpsycho’s followers will
hold this panoramic masterwork
as a career peak, and it may even
win some new disciples. A tower
worth climbing.
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Kris Needs
Lukas Nelson
& Promise Of
The Real
Lukas Nelson & Promise
Of The Real FANTASY
Chip off the old block.
The elephant in
the room: yes,
Lukas does
sound uncannily
like a young
version of his old man Willie,
and he has friends in high places,
having backed Neil Young and
grown up around country royalty.
But this isn’t about nepotism, it’s
grand music in the genes.
From the opening Set Me
Down Like A Cloud, with vivid
turns of tone and crisp phrasing
blown along by Lucius’ singers
Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig,
you’re cast into a selection of
high-class material.
While it wouldn’t be true to
say that Promise Of The Real
don’t owe nobody nuthin’ – Die
Alone is southern groove in the
JJ Cale style, and Just Outside Of
Austin is a delicious rewrite of
MOR classic Gentle On My Mind
– these kids have balls.
Lady Gaga adds majestic
soul diva clout to Find Yourself,
Nelson proves to be a sterling
guitarist and the whole thing is
hellacious, meaning good.
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Max Bell
The White
Buffalo
Darkest Darks,
Lightest Lights EARACHE
Vignettes from American life
from an LA troubadour.
There’s
something
nostalgic
about the
work of singer-
songwriter Jake Smith, aka The
White Buffalo, even though he’s
working firmly in the here and
now. He’s a storyteller, and his
vignettes of American life have
a sense of timelessness that
could place his characters at any
point in the last 100 years.
His deep, rumbling voice and
thumping, blues-saturated rock
combine to drag you into a world
of dusty small-town drama – no
wonder the makers of Sons Of
Anarchy saw fit to use his music
on the show.
There are echoes of Nick
Cave And The Bad Seeds’ Red
Right Hand in Robbery, a tale of
violence, greed and dishonour
among thieves, while The
Observatory is a delicate moment
of reflection that wouldn’t be
completely out of place in the
early pages of Ryan Adams’
back catalogue.
Turn the telly off and introduce
yourself to the inhabitants of
The White Buffalo’s world.
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Emma Johnston
Damn Freaks
Damn Freaks MIGHTY MUSIC/
TARGET GROUP
Eighties party hardy jukebox.
Singer Iacopo
‘Jack’ Meille’s
other band
when he’s not
EUROPE: BRIAN CANNON/PRESS
fronting Tygers
Of Pan Tang, Damn Freaks make
no claims to be anything other
than a shameless 80s-style
good-time rock group.
 Sound-wise, there’s plenty
of space in the mix to hear
exactly what guitarist Marco
Torri is playing, and Meille is
a breathless ball of energy at
the mic, the one-two punch
reminiscent of classic Van Halen
with Ted Templeman twiddling
the knobs, particularly on
opener Poison Apple and Burning
Up, while Dream Highway has
a distinct Poison vibe.
Unsurprisingly, the top tune is
the NWOBHM-riffing Break The
Chains, which begs you to plug
in the old air guitar and make
like it’s 1980 again – and who
doesn’t want to do that?
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Essi Berelian
Electric Wizard
Wizard Bloody Wizard
SPINEFARM
Doom denizens dial down
the dissonance.
Within a few
seconds of
opening tune
See You In Hell,
it’s obvious that
Electric Wizard’s ninth studio
album amounts to a significant
detour. In the past, the band’s
languorous, malevolent epics
oozed other-worldly menace
from every pore, bolstered by
insanely thick guitar tones and
delivered with dense,
psychedelic intensity. This time
around, those eerie atmospheres
and that underlying sense of
hostility are conspicuous by their
ROUND-UP: MELODIC ROCK
Phantom 5: packing
some weighty punches.
Phantom 5
Play II Win FRONTIERS
In the realm of
Teutonic melodic hard
rock, few names other
than the Scorpions
carry as much weight
as Claus Lessmann, lead vocalist with
Bonfire during that band’s glory years,
and Michael Voss, guitarist of Mad Max,
Casanova, Demon Drive and Silver.
absence, leaving only the band’s
trademark riffs – which are still
monstrous – and frontman Jus
Oborn’s snarling diatribes
exposed and brittle under the
harsh light of more transparent
sonic values.
Songs like Necromania and
Wicked Caresses are still horribly
heavy and several qualitative
notches above most equivalents,
but if you compare this to past
triumphs like Come My Fanatics
and Dopethrone – albums that
pushed doom metal into heavier
and more joyously drug-addled
territory than ever before
– Wizard Bloody Wizard falls
a spliff or two short of the mark.
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Dom Lawson
GWAR
The Blood Of Gods
METAL BLADE
More gory metal.
The history
of GWAR is
littered with
fake blood,
death, jizz,
menstrual blood, unspeakable
gunk shot out of codpieces and
bras, heroin overdoses (founder
member Dave Brockie, aka
Oderus Urungu, died in 2014),
seaweed extract, outrageous
costumes and the odd piece of
public figure mutilation.
As such, this long-standing
band were ahead of their time
when they started out with the
morbid comic debauchery of
Lessmann and Voss pooled forces
in 2015, the same year Claus exited
Bonfire. Featuring ex-Scorp Francis
Buchholz on bass, the first Phantom
5 album suffered for comparisons
to Bonfire and lacked consistency,
though it did enough to suggest the
partnership could yet ignite.
This time, with Buchholz gone
(Voss deputises on bass, in addition to
manning the desk), Phantom 5 have
debut album Hell-O! (1988),
predating Game Of Thrones, for
one, by several decades.
Over the years, GWAR’s
sound has become codified into
a Cannibal Corpse/Sabbath-
style thrash metal, mostly
unlistenable but pleasingly dark
and numbskull nonetheless.
The song titles may be
a little lacking this time round
(although The Sordid Soliloquy Of
Sawborg Destructo makes up for
it), but The Blood of Gods is more
of the same monstrous bilge.
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Everett True
Death From
Above
Outrage! Is Now LAST GANG
The Toronto cult legends
evolve, filthily, popwards.
Infamous more
for being CSS’s
odd choice of
shagging music
than for their
own cultural impact – their
2005 new rave hit Let’s Make
Love And Listen To Death From
Above made them household
names, in indier households –
trunk-nosed Toronto disco
punk duo Death From Above
(nee 1979) have traded on
their cultish mystery since
returning from a 10-year studio
hiatus with 2014’s second
album The Physical World.
So, still on only their third
full-length record in 17 years(!),
DFA remain a pliable, evolving
taken huge steps towards fulfilling
their potential. Play II Win isn’t perfect,
but there’s more of a band chemistry
and the music’s direction is better
defined. The likes of Crossfire, Play
To Win, Had Enuff and Baptise pack
weighty right hooks, but once again,
things wane a smidgen at the death.
Still, for the most part, their choruses
leave a satisfying aftertaste.
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concept, and Outrage! is an
attempt to sprawl in the
vague direction of scuzz-rock
respectability. Hiring QOTSA
producer Eric Valentine has
given their bluesy bluster a hint
of Josh Homme’s desert Bowie
sleaze on tracks like Never
Swim Alone, Statues, Caught Up
and Moonlight (about singing
drummer Sebastien Grainger
getting a savage street beating
while on tour in Dallas), and
nudged the likes of Freeze Me
even further into the realm of
all-out grit-pop.
There’s still space for the
weird bits, though – Nomad is
epic emo metal played, from
the sound of it, on guitars
made of burning asbestos,
and the Royal Blood rifforama
of NVR 4EVR literally features
a shaker containing the ashes
of a dead fan.
Outrageous fun.
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Mark Beaumont
Gentle Giant
Three Piece Suite ALUCARD
Consummately curated curios
from Giant’s baby steps.
They say
necessity is
the mother of
invention. The
fact that only
a few songs from Gentle Giant’s
first three albums still exist as
multi-track tapes means that
master remixer Steven Wilson
had a finite set to work with
Martina Edoff
We Will Align AOR HEAVEN
Amazonian brunette
Martina Edoff returns
with a third helping of
glacial, majestically
performed Scandinavian
AOR. Co-written with a stellar cast that
includes Erik Mårtensson of Eclipse/W.E.T.,
H.e.a.t’s Jona Tee (who also acts as
a co-producer and contributes keyboards
to the album) and Billy Sheehan, We Will
Align is every bit as fresh, bubbly and
energetic as its creator.
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Autograph
Get Off Your Ass
EMP LABEL GROUP
The Steve Plunkett-less
Autograph took the final
Firefest by storm,
playing a stunning set.
Alas, three years down
the line, this weak comeback set adds little
to the band’s legacy. You Are Us We Are
You and Meet Me Halfway rank among
a handful of worthy moments on the
album, but the cod hair metal of its title
track is simply embarrassing.
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here. Yet the results gel
beautifully as a Best-Of-cum-
primer to the band’s early work,
itself the definition of invention.
The tracks from Giant,
Acquiring The Taste and Three
Friends, all recorded between
1970 and 1972, with Tony
Visconti producing the first two,
showcase a panoply of multi-
instrumentalists who, despite
truly dreadful album covers,
warped the proverbial envelope.
At a time when some post-
psychedelia experimentation
was obligatory, they all but
overdosed. The three Shulman
brothers had harshly dismissed
their glorious 60s hit Kites, under
the name of Simon Dupree And
The Big Sound, as too cabaret,
or as they phrased it, “utter
shit”. They figured they could
fly higher.
From Mellotrons to brass to
drums to voices, they rejected
the previously done. These new
patterns bled later, diluted, into
Super Furry Animals and Beta
Band, but more swiftly were
refined in the art-pop of 10cc.
Genres mash on every track,
as choirboy vocals switch to
gruff blues-rock and rampant
percussion marries jazz piano.
There’s also a previously
unreleased nugget, Freedom’s
Child. As apogees Pantagruel’s
Nativity and Nothing At All
display, they had gargantuan
dreams.
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Chris Roberts
By Dave Ling
ColdSpell
A New World Arise
ESCAPE MUSIC
It’s been four years since
the excellent Frozen
Paradise but at long
last ColdSpell are back
with a fourth album.
As ever, the likes of Call Of The Wild and
the gorgeous Signs are built upon durable
hard rock-based foundations reminiscent
of latter-day Whitesnake, while Michael
Larsson’s guitar playing remains forceful
yet always harmonious.
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Midnite City
Midnite City AOR HEAVEN
Formed by current
Tigertailz frontman
Rob Wylde, who made
the record that he
wanted to hear as
a fan, Midnight City model themselves
upon Def Leppard, 1980s-era Kiss and,
especially, Danger Danger. The results
on this self-titled album are extremely
easy on the ear, give or take the odd
saccharine overdose. This album is
pure fun, fun, fun.
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CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 93
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 EISSUE S
R

96 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

Whitesnake
1987: Super Deluxe Edition
Nice year… We’ll take it. Era-defining
Cov’s classic, generously expanded.
A
longside Def Leppard’s Hysteria,
Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet and
Guns N’ Roses Appetite For
Destruction, Whitesnake’s 1987 stands as
the high-water mark of the MTV rock era,
a blow-dried masterpiece wherein the blues
moved to LA, got itself a spray tan and
a perm and proceeded to hump the entire
western hemisphere and a fair chunk of the
eastern one into submission.
It was an unlikely success story. Half
a decade earlier, Whitesnake had been
a strictly niche concern in global terms – an
old-school British blues rock band (albeit
a glorious one) put together by the singer
with the glasses and frizzy hair from Deep
Purple who wasn’t Ian Gillan. They were
a decent seller at home, but when this
bunch of lumpy English dudes in denim
flares and satin jackets knocked on
America’s door, America hid behind the
curtains and
pretended it
wasn’t home.
Most people would
‘1987 stands as
have taken the hint the high-water mark
eventually. Except
you can never of the MTV rock era.’
underestimate the
stubbornness of David Coverdale. The
singer’s roving eye had been caught by a
swaggering young guitar hotshot named
John Sykes, then shooting off six-string
pyrotechnics with the final incarnation of
Thin Lizzy. Coverdale enticed Sykes into the
latest line-up of Whitesnake in 1983, adding
his firepower to a turbocharged remix of the
band’s sixth album, Slide It In, designed
specifically for the US market – something
that even then looked like a dry run for 1987.
With Coverdale’s blessing, Sykes
de-bluesed Whitesnake. He packed out
their rehearsal room with giant speaker
stacks, drawing a line under their sunburst
past and bringing them fully up to speed
with the hard rock trends du jour. But the
relationship between the two men was
a turbulent one, a clash of two great big
talents with two great big egos.
There was only ever going to be one
winner in that battle. Sykes might have
written and played on the songs that made
up 1987, but by the time the album was
released he was gone, along with studio
bassist Neil Murray and drummer Aynsley
Dunbar, replaced by a cast of made-for-
MTV ringers drawn from Dio, Quiet Riot
and Ozzy Osbourne’s band.
For all that, they managed to produce an
album that oozed 80s class. The songs that
ALAMY
make up 1987 are ingrained into the DNA
PARLOPHONE
of anyone who grew up during that
glorious decade: the crackling moods of
Still Of The Night (the greatest/most
shameless Zeppelin knock-off known to
man), the priapic thunder of Give Me All Your
Love Tonight, the surprisingly sincere
yearning of Is This Love?.
Long before he pilfered the gold from his
own back catalogue with Whitesnake’s The
Purple Album, Coverdale was giving flashy
make-overs to two ’Snake classics: Here I Go
Again and Crying In The Rain. The former is
a textbook example of when hair metal got it
right, the latter is the best song on the record.
This super-deluxe edition of 1987 comes
stuffed with the requisite add-ons in the
shape of four extra discs of material (three
audio, one visual). Skip the inessential
collection of remixes, the shabby
in-concert recording from Tokyo which
won’t give Live… In The Heart Of The City
any sleepless nights
and the collection
of various promo
videos featuring
Coverdale’s then-
missus Tawny Kitaen
writhing on the
bonnets of assorted
automobiles and head straight for Evolution
’87, a compendium of demos and early
versions of the songs that make up 1987.
This is where you’ll find the meat of 1987.
Rather than merely upend the waste bin all
over the floor, various versions of each
track have been meticulously stitched
together to make new versions, so you’re
hearing them grow from rough demos to
the (almost) finished article as they play.
It works brilliantly for two reasons.
Firstly it’s a great way of charting the
evolution of how a track is put together
without having to sift through unnecessary
detritus. Secondly, even the rawest
incarnations of these tracks showcase the
class of Coverdale’s voice – something the
polish of the finished article occasionally
hides. All the hair spray, teeth whitener and
wives writhing on car bonnets can’t hide
the fact that he’s one of the finest blues-rock
singers Britain has ever produced.
At 10m sales and counting, 1987 remains
Whitesnake’s commercial high point. Is it
their greatest album? Maybe, maybe not
– Ready An’ Willin’ and Love Hunter both run
it close, but then neither had the sheer
cultural impact this did. Not bad going for
the bloke with glasses and frizzy hair from
Deep Purple who wasn’t Ian Gillan.
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Dave Everley
Dr. John
The Atco Albums
Collection RHINO
“Jock-a-mo fee na-né”
(it says here).
After a decade as an in-demand
session musician, Mac ‘Dr. John’
Rebennack came up with his
own medicinal compound,
a hearty gumbo laced with R&B,
jazz and psychedelia, liberally
seasoned with the voodoo
mythology of his New Orleans
home. The calling card was
1968’s Gris-Gris, distinguished
by Mama Roux and the epic (and
frequently covered) I Walk On
Gilded Splinters; a true original,
at once both sinister and
welcoming. A new album arrived
each year without fail, the likes
of Babylon and Remedies
consolidating the spooky vibes.
Yet for all the cult praise and
seals of approval from
contemporaries, it was his fifth
release, Dr. John’s Gumbo, that
established him as New Orleans
royalty, thanks to his
interpretative magic on the
music of the city’s famous sons
Professor Longhair and Huey
‘Piano’ Smith, including the
ubiquitous Iko Iko.
The final two albums in this
collection, In The Right Place and
Destively Bonnaroo, were made in
tandem with another Crescent
City mainstay, Allen Toussaint,
and the muscular
accompaniment of The Meters.
It could be argued that
Rebennack’s later work flirted
with novelty (albums of
standards, etc), and although
there have been intermittent
sparkly gems down the years it’s
this first seven that make up the
cornerstone of his reputation.
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Terry Staunton
Sex Pistols
More Product USM/UMC
‘Flogging a dead horse’ was
how they termed it then.
The Sex Pistols
‘third’ album,
Some Product,
Carri On Sex
Pistols, released
in 1979, long after frontman
Johnny Rotten’s acrimonious
departure, is a hastily cobbled-
together collection of the Sex
Pistols talking, mostly on the
radio – banned radio ads, the
odd snippet of music, Grundy
swear words included. As such it
shouldn’t work on any level – the
calculated money-grabbing
cynicism behind such a release
was going some, even for
manager Malcom McLaren – but
it does, sometimes gloriously.
In particular, the Yank-goading
American phone-in session Big
Tits Across America, snatches of
which this reviewer can still
recall 40 years on. Such gleeful,
despicable, riotous, laddish
banter – the sound of four lads
not quite believing the gullibility
of those around them, and
taking full advantage.
Often it feels like the least
tutored moments are the most
revealing when it comes to
stripping bare myths. Rotten is
a caustic delight, Paul Cook and
Steve Jones willing dupes, the
music industry a shameful smug
mess. Pointless and gratuitously
objectionable, but you could
argue the same for spiritual peers
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.
In keeping with the spirit of the
original, this reissue (which
includes a Radio 1 interview from
1977 and two previously
unreleased radio interviews) is
a rip-off, but that only adds to its
‘charm’. Twenty-four quid for a
three-CD spoken-word set?!
McLaren would be proud.
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Everett True
Stray
All In Your Mind: The
Transatlantic Years
1970-1974 ESOTERIC
Stray-cat dues.
Roaring out of
west London
as teenagers in
the late 60s,
Stray became
faves on the UK’s thriving club
scene with their riff-bolstered
prog, favouring Del Bromham’s
guitar flights and US psych
vocal harmonies.
After 1970’s self-titled debut
album, Stray recorded four more
for Transatlantic (Suicide, Saturday
Morning Pictures, Mudanzas
and Move It), supporting the
likes of Sabbath and Quo but
never breaking big (even when
managed by Charlie Kray).
Changing label and line-ups,
Stray continued with Bromham
out front, getting a boost when
Maiden’s Steve Harris declared
himself a fan and his band
covered All In Your Mind for the
B-side of Holy Smoke.
This bulging box contains the
Transatlantic albums plus a disc
of outtakes, rare 45s and demos,
including their 1968 audition.
Stray might not have found
a home then, but they play
a reunion show this month to
celebrate this belated but well-
deserved acknowledgement of
their endless graft.
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Kris Needs
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 97
REISSUES
The Jam
1977 UMC/POLYDOR
Five-disc set of the band’s first glory year.
My teenage self salivates.
T
his sumptuous five-CD collection
contains much of The Jam’s
prodigious output during their
first glory year, 1977. That means you get
the brash determination and unswerving
vision of debut album In The City, the raw
teen power of second album This Is The
Modern World and the original Polydor
demos from February 1977 (and not
a duff track among them). On top of that,
there are two lots of John Peel sessions,
which still retain the knack of sounding
more finely honed than the official
releases, a previously unreleased live
concert from the Nashville – 15 tracks
of blistering fury – and the occasional
dodgy Arthur Conley cover. There’s
even a DVD full of TV appearances and
promo videos.
As I say, my teenage self would have
salivated. So does my adult self. So what
if In The City features seven times here, in
various guises?
Such self-belief! Such heedless purpose
and willpower! Okay, these songs are no
Sound Affects or Setting Sons, but what is?
Seriously, what is?
Also, there’s quite some argument to
be had for Art School (distrust of adult
conventions), the searing Away From The
Numbers (loneliness to be found at the
heart of the crowd), Carnaby Street, Life From
A Window (very few songwriters captured
98 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
the alienation of the suburbia I knew as
well as Weller in The Jam), and the singles
(of course) being the equal of anything
that followed… even some of the suspect
Motown covers, and especially that
burning Who cover (So Sad About Us).
And how great is first album track
Time For Truth? I mean, as Weller himself
put it, fuck off.
Because they had never brooked no
argument, never had any cause to doubt
themselves, and because they were so
young themselves, The Jam naturally
managed to capture the confusion and
bruised dreams of being a teenage boy
in late 1970s Britain like few others.
By the time the group released their
debut single In The City in 1977 – and
God, here was an anthem of pure
optimism to match any (The Jam did
anthems so well) – the band has already
been playing together for five years
and so arrived seemingly fully formed,
operating at the peak of their powers.
And then they just got better. It helped,
of course, that drummer Rick Buckler
looked so cool.
Weller split The Jam when he was still
only 24 years old. Mere mod revivalists?
Get the fuck out of here. From year one,
The Jam were insanely great.
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Everett True
Airbourne
Diamond Cuts NETTWERK
Good old rock’n’roll thunder
from Down Under.
Few bands
pack as much
fun and punch
into their
performances
as Airbourne do. The Aussies
attack their music with all the
energy and attitude of maniacal
cannibals on the trail of fresh
flesh. It’s no wonder they’re
regarded as the natural
successors to Rose Tattoo.
This set houses the band’s first
three albums, giving us another
chance to bathe in the bloodlust
of Runnin’ Wild (2007), No Guts,
No Glory (2010) and Black Dog
Barking (2013). They’re so full
of in-yer-face attitude that they
still kick hard.
What will interest Air heads,
though, are the two other discs.
The fourth CD, Diamond Cuts
– The B-Sides, has a selection
of 13 songs that were on the
B-sides of various singles from
that era, but also two previously
unreleased tracks, namely
Money and Heavyweight Lover.
Both have unmistakable
Airbourne rock’n’roll pace, with
the former being a real gem.
Quite how this got recorded
during the sessions for No Guts,
No Glory and then discarded
is something of a puzzle.
This should have been put
out a long time ago.
The fifth disc is a DVD called
It’s All For Rock ’N’ Roll, which is
a documentary on the band. If
you’re expecting serious insight
and philosophical analysis, you’ll
be sorely disappointed. What
you get is what you’d expect
from such a band – full-on
madcap bluster of the type that’ll
make you smirk throughout.
This is a cracking reminder
of Airbourne’s personality. The
bonus stuff enhances it all.
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Malcolm Dome
Montrose
Deluxe Edition Reissues
WARNER MUSIC
Two-disc reissues for two
landmark Montrose releases.
Montrose
(9/10) and
Paper Money
(8/10) have
long cemented
Montrose’s place in history – the
almost impossible to follow
debut, the subsequent years of
attrition between singer and
guitarist – so what can yet
another reissue offer to prise the
cash from your wallet? In the
case of their debut, a remastered
disc with incredibly clean and
detailed demos that sound
almost as pristine as the magical
tracks they’d soon become.
Most intriguing is the live set
the band play for radio station
KSAN. Stepping in as a late
substitute for Van Morrison,
it’s their first live show. As the
DJ remarks: “I don’t even know
if these guys have a name
yet.” Name or not, they don’t
disappoint – Hagar is already
fully formed as a singer,
while Ronnie Montrose is so
mellifluous as to be ridiculous.
A year later they’d return, as
evidenced on the second disc of
Paper Money, slick from the road
and brimming with confidence;
they’re practically mute on their
first session, boisterous on the
second. It’s another high-flying
set, with a particularly robust
Roll Over Beethoven showing
a band in full flight and offering
even more reasons to regret the
fact they couldn’t make it last.
Philip Wilding
The Residents
80 Aching Orphans
CHERRY RED
Eyeballs, top hats and 45 years
of madness.
The only failsafe
way to truly
grasp what The
Residents have
been up to over
the last 45 years would be to
immerse oneself in their bizarre,
challenging and frequently
unfathomable music to the
exclusion of everything else. But
then you would probably go
mad. The next best option is to
buy this glorious four-disc
retrospective, which is both as
illuminating and confounding as
anyone could hope.
With tracks drawn from
across the eyeball-sporting
loonbags’ entire catalogue, and
with a generous sprinkling of
rarities and unheard material,
80 Aching Orphans reinforces
what a unique proposition they
have always been.
Although more firmly rooted
in avant-garde performance art
than anything as mundane as
rock’n’roll, The Residents’ music
can be enchanting, thrilling and
terrifying, often within the same
song, and while they’re arguably
the ultimate acquired taste,
only a few moments veer into
impenetrable insanity.
THE JAM: REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
All the band’s best-known
tunes are here, from Hello Skinny
(which many will know from
Primus’s reverential cover)
and Kaw-liga (think Billie Jean
 gone wrong) to The Angry
Angakok from 1979’s ageless
masterpiece Eskimo.
The perfect entry point for the
uninitiated, these 400 minutes
of madness make pretty much
everything else seem a bit dull.
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Dom Lawson
The Smiths
The Queen is Dead –
Deluxe Edition WARNER
Teenage dreams are hard
to beat.
Returning to
an album you
adored beyond
reason in your
teens is clearly
inviting disappointment, but this
1986 Morrissey-Marr career
peak proves enduringly rich and
rewarding in its punchy,
remastered, expanded form.
From that Shakespearean
state-of-the-nation rockbeast
title track to the deceptively
sunny, tropical guitar shimmers
of Cemetry Gates, from the Billy
Liar-esque tartness of Frankly
Mr Shankly to the gloriously
overblown romantic self-pity
of There Is A Light That Never
Goes Out, no other British
band has ever sounded so
simultaneously in love with
both life and death. Boy
geniuses, still in their twenties,
still largely unsoured by the
bad blood to come.
A second disc of demos,
B-sides and alternative takes
yields no lost classics but plenty
of modest pleasures. My snobby
teenage self might have hated
the mournful trumpet solo on
an early blueprint of Never Had
No One Ever, but middle-aged
me can appreciate this rare
Smiths acknowledgement of
rock’s jazzy, bluesy hinterland.
The false starts, vocal stumbles
and snatches of studio chatter
also cast interesting light on
a band that always appeared
so supernaturally self-assured.
Featuring a previously
unreleased concert recording
from Boston in 1986, the third
CD offers a welcome reminder
of the muscle and swagger
the Smiths could muster
outside the studio. Hand In
Glove and I Want The One I Can’t
Have both have real punky bite,
while the weeping glissando
cascades of That Joke Isn’t Funny
Anymore still inflame tender
teenage emotions decades later.
“Don’t pretend,” Morrissey
teases the crowd, “you didn’t like
it.” Warm and witty, camp and
knowing, fully in control of his
art and his audience. I miss that
brilliant young man sometimes.
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Stephen Dalton
The Sisters
Of Mercy
Some Girls Wander
By Mistake RHINO
Fifty shades of black, newly
reissued on deluxe vinyl.
Despite
releasing only
one new song
in the past
27 years,
Andrew Eldritch’s techno-goth
trailblazers remain the cult that
will not die. They still fill arenas
in Europe, while their rare UK
shows are frenzied sell-outs.
Newly remastered as a vinyl
box set, this 1992 compilation of
early singles and EPs captures
the future doom-rock overlords
as a febrile work in progress
between 1980 and 1983, a rough
beast slouching towards Leeds
University Student Union.
At almost eight minutes, the
full-length zombie-apocalypse
cyberpunk stampede of Temple
Of Love is the sole crossover
anthem here. Reissued in 1992, it
gave the Sisters their biggest hit.
Some of these primitive
experiments haven’t aged
gracefully, with too much spindly
drum-machine clatter and
juvenile sleaze-horror schlock.
But Phantom and Kiss The Carpet
remain impressively cinematic,
meshing moody guitar twangs
with stuttering electro beats,
while the slamming techno-
metal cover of Iggy’s 1969 is
basically Eldritch shamelessly
confessing where he copped
his Nosferatu vocal croak.
More interesting are very
early tracks such as Watch,
Body Electric and Adrenochrome,
recorded when the Sisters were
still post-punk proto-goths who
shared more sonic terrain with
PiL or Cabaret Voltaire than the
none-more-black hordes who
would later follow them into the
eternal night.
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Stephen Dalton
Flock
Truth – Columbia
Recordings 1969-70
CHERRY RED
Giving a flying Flock.
Emerging from
Chicago into
the heady,
psychedelic
avant-garde
scene at the end of the 60s, The
Flock were in thrall to Miles
Davis’s Bitches Brew. The seven-
piece line-up – centred on
guitarist/singer Fred Glickstein
and classical/jazz violinist Jerry
Goodman – included two sax
players and a trumpeter, and the
opening track of their 1969 self-
titled debut, called Introduction,
has an alluring range of
dynamics to draw you in.
They can switch styles at will,
often within the same song.
The key for the casual listener is
their left-field cover of the The
Kinks’ Tired Of Waiting. If you
get it, then the swirling bursts
of creativity and frequently
surreal lyrics provide their
own momentum.
But the sense that there’s
more to come soon dissipates
on their second album, Dinosaur
Swamp, which is dense and
bewildering. The ideas continue
to flood in but there’s no quality
control and the songs lack focus.
Goodman, whose playing
is a compelling feature on the
first album, is relegated to
a peripheral role. Instead, there’s
an increasing reliance on sound
effects and production tricks.
Not surprisingly Goodman
was easily lured away to the
Mahavishnu Orchestra.
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Hugh Fielder

ELP
Fanfare: Emerson, Lake & Palmer
1970-1997 BMG
This huge box set brings a whole new
meaning to the term ‘super-deluxe’.

A
s Carl Palmer limbers up (you imagine
he really does limber up – no one that
age stays in that kind of shape without
the occasional lunge) to collect the 2017 Prog
God gong for his lifetime’s dedication to the
music he and his bandmates made and loved,
ELP’s label have decided to roll out what can best
be described as the big guns.
ELP collections are nothing new – the earth
has been exhumed and reworked so many times
on their past endeavours that even Love Beach
managed to accrue some kind of legend, and not
just for what Keith Emerson was wearing on the
cover. It would, you’d imagine, be going some to
get people to dip their hands into their pockets
for yet another reimagining of the work that
Emerson, Lake & Palmer did up to and into the
90s, when, quite frankly, the wheels had come
off with an alarming clatter.
That said, the only thing you can imagine that
ELP: REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
from there on in, all bets are off. There
are the Steven Wilson and Jakko
Jakszyk surround sound mixes, which
were revelatory enough when first
released, but when you fall into the
ELP-shaped hole of the unreleased
triple live album of a Milan show in
May 1973, you wonder how three
men made all that glorious racket.
This will all be nothing new to
the bootleggers, but there’s much
to enjoy in the Andy Pearce and
Matt Wortham re-engineered live
disc, not least a show from Pocono
International Raceway (no, we’ve
no recollection of it as a venue either) in July Bob Harris interviews to hold your attention.
1972, where the band kick off with Hoedown In addition to all that there are original promo
and then Tarkus before settling into Take A Pebble, posters, the Lucky Man single, a hardback book
presumably so everyone can catch their breath. and even a badge.
Personally speaking, it’s the On The BBC disc It may just be yet another ELP exhumation,

might be missing from this collection is one of that kept calling me back, with the band flying but it feels like a labour of real love.
Keith Emerson’s Hammond-stabbing blades. through a show from the Works tour at some QQQQQQQQQQ
You get the original 11 albums, naturally, but enormodome in Memphis, with some added Philip Wilding

CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 99
REISSUES
Grand Funk Railroad
Trunk Of Funk Vol 1/Trunk Of Funk
Vol 2 UMC
Bulging Trunks – no budgie-smugglers here.
I
n July 1971, US monstergroup
Grand Funk Railroad played
a massive free concert in London’s
Hyde Park, supported by Humble Pie
and Head Hands & Feet. Thousands of
early-generation headbangers witnessed
a truly awe-inspiring set by the definitive
American blue-collar rock band. However
this monumental event has been largely
erased from rock history because: a) GFR
weren’t The Who or the Rolling Stones,
and b) critics abhorred them as much as
fans adored them.
At least these Trunk Of Funk collections
– actually, given the size of them, let’s call
them shipping containers – give the band
a little of the respect they deserve. Because
let’s face it, this lot played arena rock
before there were even arenas – just fields
of corn and dusty parking lots.
Vol 1 spans the years 1969-1971 and
includes six discs, beginning with debut
album On Time and ending with E Pluribus
Funk. Vol 2 takes in 1972-1976 with
another half-dozen CDs, from Phoenix
to Born To Die.
There are naturally missteps, given this
phenomenal output, but when the Funk
are on song, there’s no stopping them. For
evidence, look no further than the brace
of live albums included here: the aptly
titled Live Album (1970) and Caught In The
Act (1975). Tracks such as Mean Mistreater,
100 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
T.N.U.C., Inside Looking Out and, of course,
signature song We’re An American Band
were, and remain, the stuff of legend – no
matter what the holier-than-thou rock
journals of old might have told you.
As for the missteps? Well, look no
further than 1974’s All The Girls In The
World Beware!!!, the band depicted as
muscle-bound Schwarzenegger types
on the cover – Manowar eat your heart
out. The album reaches its nadir with
the appropriately horn-heavy Look At
Granny Run Run – admittedly not a GFR
original – which tells the tale of an old
lady being pursued by her aged husband,
who has just been prescribed Viagra
(or the 1970s equivalent).
To counterbalance the hilarity, the
album closes with a magnificent version
of Some Kind Of Wonderful, with an
ever-commanding vocal performance
by Mark Farner. But the best track of
the entire collection just has to be the
epic and elegiac I’m Your Captain, which
appeared originally on 1970 album Closer
To Home –an enduring classic rock, er,
classic if there ever was one.
The only criticism of these sets is the
dodgy repro of the original album sleeves
– the shiny glory of E Pluribus Funk, for
example, now resembles a tatty beer mat.
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Geoff Barton
John Lee Hooker
King Of The Boogie CONCORD
Five-CD celebration of the
influential blues legend.
Unlike many of
the blues giants
who mapped
out the sonic
and psychic
territory for future generations,
multi-Grammy-winner John Lee
Hooker lived to see his work
rewarded and enjoy the spoils.
The final disc in this collection
(With Friends) shows just how
far his music reached and the
voluminous cast of those who
benefitted from his inimitably
rowdy, implacable fearsome
and determined sound.
Stoicism and unchanging
resolve are the keynotes that tie
together Hooker’s earliest primal
foot-stomping solo tracks Boogie
Chillen (a 1948 hit), the bopping
and punchy 60s R&B sides
(Boom Boom), and full-band final
Healer-era recordings with Eric,
Van and Carlos.
The rural/electric blues
crossover soundtracks Hooker’s
journey from Deep South
sharecropper shack to big city
Detroit and Chicago blues,
his rhythmic drive and lyrical
ingenuity proving ageless and
all-conquering.
With 100 albums released
in his lifetime, five CDs can
only scratch the surface of
Planet Hooker; stellar albums
with Canned Heat and The
Groundhogs are represented
with one track each. Nonetheless,
there are some choice previously
unreleased tracks nestling
beside the standard classics
and deeper catalogue cuts.
All told, this is a finely detailed
and lovingly curated tribute to
one of the true greats.
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Gavin Martin
Bark Psychosis
Hex FIRE
Hex is the album that the term
post-rock was invented for.
As Simon Reynolds (the critic
who coined the term) had it,
post-rock was about using rock
instrumentation for non-rock
purposes, using guitars as
facilitators of timbre and
textures rather than riffs and
power chords.
And so it is on Hex: the seven
tracks contained on this 1994
album may come to occasional
stops and refrains, the vocals
whispered/lullabied like a bevy
of saddened, friendless Talk Talk
and AR Kane fans, but
throughout there is
a determination not to be
weighed down by heedless
expectation: this music, while
symphonic in structure, exists
within the moment and the
moment alone. Moments like
the crystalline tumbles of sound
washing across the middle
section of Absent Friend feel both
haunting and captivating: an
overcoat of rock instrumentation
perhaps, but with the feel and
lineage of ambient dance music
or a Philip Glass. Or even Mike
Oldfield’s Tubular Bells.
Throughout the entirety of
Hex, the mood captured is one of
rain-splashed, neon-reflecting
deserted city streets: down but
not depressed. Urban anguish.
A direct line can be traced
between the spellbound
meandering mesmerising music
here back to the roots of avant-
garde electronica, minimalist
classical and 1980s synth-pop,
and forward to bands such as
Sigur Rós, Godspeed You! Black
Emperor, Mogwai and Tortoise
(among many others).
Hex was Bark Psychosis’s final
moment (and debut album):
although the band disintegrated
soon afterwards. The mark they
left is indelible.
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Everett True
The Tubes
The A&M Years CAROLINE
Not punk, definitely dope:
early years’ effervescence.
It’s strange that
glam, punk,
prog and art-
rock aren’t all
fighting over
who claims The Tubes as
heroes of their own. In the 80s,
the wonderfully theatrical San
Francisco porno-politico
collective smoothed out their
live shock tactics to gain radio
play, but their first five years
were a riot of satire, excess
and misdirection.
This often inspired box set
brings together their four
opening studio salvos, plus
What Do You Want From Live?,
recorded during a whole week of
shows at Hammersmith Odeon.
(Yes, they were that big; they
headlined Knebworth in ’78.)
White Punks On Dope, the
finale of their 1975 self-titled
debut album, was cunningly
pitched as a punk anthem in
the UK two years later, but by
’79, their other notional hit here,
Prime Time, was an ironically
GRAND FUNK RAILROAD: GETTY
slick love duet. Their minds
moved too quickly to let an
audience settle.
So there are plenty of thrills
and wry chuckles here, as even
 the revolving producers – Al
Kooper, Ken ‘Ziggy’ Scott, Roxy/
Genesis man John Anthony and
Todd Rundgren – scream 70s
rock invention.
That debut revels in sci-fi
and trash culture; Young And
Rich is wilfully sleazy; Now
sees them anxiously covering
Beefheart and Lee Hazlewood;
Remote Control is an immaculate
skewering of TV addicts.
Turn on The Tubes again.
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Chris Roberts
Ace Frehley
Anomaly Deluxe
STEAMHAMMER/SPV
Truly, madly, Frehley.
Anomaly, Ace
Frehley’s fifth
solo album,
from 2009,
encapsulates
the original Kiss guitarist’s
personality to a tee. Strip away
all the flash-bombs, smokin’
guitars and well-documented
addictions and you’ll find
a tender soul; someone who
wears his heart on his sleeve
– even if said sleeve is part of
a cheap tinfoil spacesuit.
The album begins in fine style
with the raucous Foxy & Free, the
pace not letting up for second
track Outer Space. The lumpen
Pain In The Neck is a bit of
a misstep, and a version of
Sweet’s Fox On The Run is as
throwaway as they come, but the
album really hits its groove (pun
intended) with the sprawling six-
minute mini-epic Genghis Khan.
(The moment when Ace bellows
‘Genghis!’ never fails to bring
a smile to the face.)
Talking of which, Too Many
Faces has hints of paranoia, Ace
maybe recalling his days in
make-up with the words: ‘Too
many faces in the mirror, looking
back, looking back at me.’
Elsewhere, A Little Below The
Angels deals with Frehley’s battle
with alcoholism and features
a sweet cameo from his
daughter Monique, while It’s
A Great Life (subtitled Don’t Let
Gene Drag You Down) could
perhaps be described as Ace’s
very own My Way.
In addition to the original
album, this remastered edition
includes three bonus songs:
Hard For Me (previously
unreleased), Pain In The Neck
(previously unreleased slower
version) and The Return Of The
Space Bear (first time on CD).
Aces high? You betcha.
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Geoff Barton
U-Men
U-Men SUB POP
Two-CD anthology of one of
the great lost Seattle bands.
From 1983
to 1987, the
U-Men were
the kings of
the Seattle
underground. Their sludgy,
twisted, hypnotic sound was
akin to Melbourne’s Birthday
Party and fellow American
absurdists Butthole Surfers,
but these north-western slime
lizards had a malevolence and
dark humour all their own.
As Mudhoney frontman Mark
Arm writes in the sleeve-notes,
“The U-Men are one of the best
bands I’ve ever seen. They were
hypnotic, frenetic, powerful and
compelling… They ruled a bleak
backwater landscape populated
by maybe 200 people.”
Fanzine writer Bruce Pavitt
released the U-Men’s first
12-inch EP on Bombshelter,
and would have released their
second on his fledgling Sub
Pop label but was too broke. By
the time their one album was
released – 1988’s Step On A Bug
– starvation and touring had
done for bassist Jim Tillman, and
the band, although still great,
were never the same again.
U-Men split soon after, but not
before releasing the tremendous,
tremulous single Dig It A Hole/
Solid Action – the finest garage
churner ever to rip off the
Batman theme – which made
Single Of The Week in Melody
Maker, alongside Love Buzz, the
debut single by new Sub Pop
band Nirvana.
This collection is the entire
studio-recorded output of
the U-Men, remastered by
legendary producer Jack
Endino, plus five unreleased
songs – and damn, it’s fine.
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Everett True
Various
Let The Electric Children
Play – The Underground
Story Of Transatlantic
Records 1968-1976 ESOTERIC
Going underground.
Following Island
Records’ lead as
an underground
rock epicentre,
Nat Joseph
broadened the roster of
Transatlantic, the label he had
started to release folk and blues
on in 1961, to mirror the changes
happening in British music.
Leading his attack were
Pentangle, whose self-titled
1968 debut album became one
of the biggest influences on
late-60s rock by introducing
folk and jazz elements. This
stellar band are represented
by two tracks that are the
most familiar items on three
CDs constructed from the
Transatlantic archives.
Alongside the better-known
Stray and Jody Grind lurk
a kaleidoscope of delights,
including Sallyangie (featuring
pre-Bells Mike Oldfield), Mel
Collins’s Circus, prog-jazzers
Marsupalami and CMU, the
Dave Gilmour-mentored
Unicorn, folk-rockers Gryphon,
psych-proggers Jan Dukes de
Grey, pre-Camel Peter Bardens,
Lindisfarne’s Alan Hull, plus
Billy Connolly and Gerry
Rafferty as The Humblebums.
The set also shows how
Transatlantic provided an
outlet for London underground
stalwarts Skin Alley and The
Deviants, which led to Mick
Farren’s anarchic Mona – The
Carnivorous Circus being recorded
with percussion nutters Twink
and Steve Peregrine Took. It tops
an engaging chronicle of a time
when rules were there to be
broken, musical or otherwise.
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Kris Needs

Steve Miller Band

Ultimate Hits UNIVERSAL
Some people call him Maurice… Comprehensive
career retrospective of the Space Cowboy.

I
t seems curious that despite a 50-year
career, most rock fans’ knowledge
of Steve Miller is limited solely to
his handful of radio staples – The Joker,
Abracadabra, Fly Like An Eagle.
A graduate of the Chicago blues scene
who arrived in San Francisco in time to
embrace psychedelia, Miller navigated his way
through the rapidly changing musical tides
with a dexterity to match any of rock’s biggest
stars. Yet this fascinating figure – a former child
prodigy who went to school with Boz Scaggs
– remains that rarest of commodities in rock:
a household name we know very little about.
Miller’s own frustration at this state of affairs
spilled over last year at his belated induction into
the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, an experience
he described as “unpleasant”.
Curated by Miller himself – now a sprightly
73 years old – this multi-formatted collection
does its best to set the record straight. While
STEVE MILLER BAND: GETTY
album), it’s on the 40-track, two-CD
(and quadruple-vinyl) set where
things get really interesting.
Opening with a home recording
of Les Paul (his godfather) telling
him: “Steve, you’re really going to
go places,” it comes with a folksy,
autobiographical feel that’s
mirrored by Miller’s essentially
good-natured muse.
It’s fascinating to trace his progress
– from the driving psych-blues of
1968’s Living In The U.S.A. through
the streamlined groove-rock of 1973’s Jet the most notable being a demo version of Take
Airliner to the synthesised trippiness of 1976’s The Money And Run.
Wild Mountain Honey. Miller has always been at his happiest, as he
Miller, ever the consummate entertainer, has told us in 1973’s The Joker, when he’s ‘playing my
always been about giving his audience value music in the sun’. His upbeat approach may have
for money, and even here there’s no room for denied him the critical plaudits he deserves,
indulgence. Instead we get nods to his dance but 40 years on from his heyday he’s having
rhythm-assisted commercial renaissance in the the last laugh. This funky, feel-good collection

the single-CD version collects all the hits 80s (Italian X-Rays), a brace of tracks from 1993’s sounds as fresh as tomorrow.
plus a previously unreleased solo demo of return-to-form Wide River (Cry Cry Cry, Stranger QQQQQQQQQQ
Seasons (originally on 1969’s Brave New World Blues) and five unreleased (mostly live) tracks, Paul Moody

CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 101
 U YE R
B GUIDE ’S
Mick Ronson
The self-effacing Yorkshireman made Bowie famous, was the
sound of glam rock and revitalised the Velvet Underground.
A
lthough he had only two solo
albums released in his lifetime
(Slaughter On 10th Avenue and
Play Don’t Worry), Mick Ronson enjoyed
a period as one of Britain’s greatest
guitarists, thanks to groundbreaking
performances with David Bowie before,
during and after The Dame’s rise to fame.
The fulcrum on Ziggy Stardust And The
Spiders From Mars, Ronson’s skills – player,
arranger, musical director – made him
indispensable, until Bowie changed
tactics for Diamond Dogs.
Never at ease in promoting his solo
albums, Ronno preferred a collaborative
role, one he’d perfected in his most
significant home town (Hull) band,
The Rats. His first major project was
also local: his contribution to Michael
Chapman’s second album, 1970’s Fully
Qualified Surveyor. Chapman said: “That
bugger’s the best guitarist around.”
This was the point when Bowie and
his then-producer Tony Visconti first
came across the skinny, reticent Ronson.
Many have noticed certain similarities
between the Chapman recording and
Bowie’s Hunky Dory, the album signalling
the mutation of hippie bohemia into
emerging glam rock.
102 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Ronson’s involvement in Lou Reed’s
Transformer showcased his string
arranging and sharp guitar vision, and
helped rescue a bunch of material lying
around in half-finished form. His later
work with Ian Hunter was fruitful,
although the Bowie-mania days were
never replaced. He also did sterling work
with other side projects, including the
Pure Prairie League and Bob Dylan’s
Rolling Thunder Revue. “I’d follow him
[Bob] anywhere,” Ronson vowed. “That
whole tour was this huge adventure.
There was Joan Baez, [Roger] McGuinn,
Allen Ginsberg. There was Dylan. And
there I was too. For a lad from Yorkshire
it was truly out of this world.”
After that, Ronno’s career was
punctuated with hits, but not many. For
every John Cougar there was a David
Cassidy. A latter-day Bowie reunion and
vital assists to Morrissey’s Your Arsenal
coincided with the knowledge that he had
inoperable liver cancer, but he worked up
until his death in April 1993, aged just 46.
Morrissey’s guitarist Boz Boorer
recalled: “I can see him in front of
a deafening Marshall head, dialling in
a sound he could hear, a master at work.”
Max Bell
Essential Classics
Davis Bowie
Hunky Dory RCA, 1971
Recording began after Bowie
and Ronson’s Glastonbury
performance, with the future
Ziggy components in place.
This was the only time Ronno
received arrangement credits.
While Hunky Dory flopped at
the time, it is regarded as the
band’s best-loved album.
Tracks like Quicksand and
The Bewlay Brothers signal the
time when hippie mysticism
gave way to nascent glam rock
on Queen Bitch and Changes.
Nods to Lennon, Warhol and
the Velvet Underground were
ambitious calling cards, with
Ronson’s acoustic and electric
playing carrying the conceits
off and ensuring that Life On
Mars? achieved classic status.
The Starman with
his star man.
David Bowie
The Man Who Sold
The World MERCURY 1970
This is the one with the metal.
The Eastern drone and Latin
rhythms of the title track,
the show-stopping R&B of
The Width Of A Circle and the
distorted, depressive All The
Madmen were unlike anything
else in British rock. Meanwhile,
The Supermen, based on a riff
Jimmy Page gifted the singer,
was the perfect vehicle to let
Ronson off the leash.
Bowie provided the psych
references to Nietzsche,
HP Lovecraft and Aleister
Crowley, and Ronson (and
Tony Visconti) arranged to
perfection. Even throwaway
Black Country Rock is an
GETTY
object lesson in precision.
 Superior Reputation cementing
David Bowie
The Rise And Fall Of
Ziggy Stardust And The
Spiders From Mars RCA, 1972
June 16, 1972 marks the game
changer for Bowie and his
band. Ronson’s uncredited
string arrangements often go
unnoticed here because of the
grandiose sweep of the songs,
but his parts for Five Years
and Moonage Daydream and
the synth on Suffragette City
underscored the lyrics, and his
harmony vocals were integral.
Producer Ken Scott
marvelled at Ronno’s ability
to make a brief dash to the
toilet to write a chart and then
tutor the unnamed quartet
while Bowie looked on in silent
admiration at “my Jeff Beck”.
Good Worth exploring
Ian Hunter
Ian Hunter CBS 1975
A long and lasting friendship
between Hunter and
Ronson began when Ronno
scribbled a strings-and-brass
arrangement on the back of
a fag packet for Mott The
Hoople’s Sea Diver and tutored
the band through their version
of All The Young Dudes.
Hunter’s debut kicks off
with Ronson’s solo on Once
Bitten, Twice Shy, and Ronno
gets a credit for Boy and adds
guitars, organ, Mellotron, bass
and harmonica elsewhere.
Ronno’s production
expertise lends this album
its enduring quality, and his
partnership with Hunter was
replicated on You’re Never
Alone With A Schizophrenic.
Lou Reed
Transformer RCA, 1972
Ronson did the bulk of the
production and all the vital
arrangements on the album
that popularised Lou Reed and
made him a star. His string
and piano parts for Perfect
Day, the recorder on Satellite
Of Love, that riff on Vicious and
the iconic orchestration and
vocal parts on Walk On The
Wild Side should have ensured
Ronno became wealthy, but
as usual he received pay
scale, while others reaped
the rewards and the kudos.
Later on, Reed credited the
‘Glammer Twins’ for boosting
his career and emphasised
the fact that Ronson’s hand
was the major one.
Mick Ronson
Slaughter On 10th Avenue
RCA, 1974
His tenure with Bowie almost
up, Ronson was pushed to
the forefront by the MainMan
organisation. He made
a credible solo debut, but cast
his net too wide, taking in
everything from Elvis (Love Me
Tender) to Italian pop (Music
Is Lethal) and the Richard
Rodgers ballet piece that Bowie
suggested as the title track.
In terms of virtuoso playing
– Ronson’s version of Annette
Peacock’s I’m The One being
the charm – it’s business as
usual, although for once he
would have been better off
with an outside producer,
since too much on the album
gets lost in translation.
Michael Chapman
Fully Qualified Survivor
HARVEST, 1970
A key breakthrough for Ronno,
who studied Chapman’s string
arranger Paul Buckmaster
and producer Gus Dudgeon
while lending his licks to the
funky Soulful Lady and the
sweeping chord changes of
Stranger In The Room.
In his element feeding off
the strings on Postcards From
Scarborough or underpinning
the gentle Rabbit Hills, he
also picked up tips on mood
and nuance from bassist Rick
Kemp, who had escorted him
to the sessions. The dynamics
on this album can be heard
in Hunky Dory, the experience
clearly having inspired Ronno.
Mick Ronson
Play Don’t Worry RCA, 1975
Ronson’s second solo album
suffers the same fate as its
predecessor, as it’s piecemeal
again. The highlights – Billy
Porter, a revisited Stone Love
(Soul Love) on the CD edition
and a crisp take on Pure
Prairie League’s Angel No. 9
are fine enough, but The Girl
Can’t Help It and a warmed-up
White Light/White Heat are
surplus to requirements.
The musicians include
Trevor Bolder and Mike
Garson so it sounds authentic,
without quite convincing that
Ronson believes he should
be fronting the venture. RCA
agreed and released him from
his contract. Luckily, Dylan
was just around the corner.
Essential
Playlist
Stranger In
The Room
Fully Qualified Survivor
The Width
Of A Circle
The Man Who Sold
The World
David Bowie All The
Aladdin Sane RCA, 1973 Madmen
Up and running, Ronson The Man Who Sold
provided the Stonesy riffs The World
to Watch That Man and the
flaming solo on Time. The hit
single The Jean Genie, based
Life On Mars?
Hunky Dory
on The Yardbirds I’m A Man,
was worked over by Bowie
and Ronson at the back of the The Bewlay
bus during the Spiders’ US Brothers
Hunky Dory
tour and became the band’s
biggest hit to date, followed
by the prototype Bowie-does- Moonage
soul track Drive-in Saturday. Daydream
That single’s B-side, a cover Ziggy Stardust
of Chuck Berry’s Around And
Around, depicts the guitarist at Rock ’N’ Roll
his most playful. Most people Suicide
just busk the solo on covers of Ziggy Stardust
old rock numbers, but Ronson
took it seriously. Walk On The
Wild Side
Transformer
Avoid
Panic In Detroit
Aladdin Sane
The Jean Genie
Aladdin Sane
I’m The One
Slaughter On 10th
Avenue
David Bowie Once Bitten,
Pin Ups RCA, 1973 Twice Shy
Great in theory, Pin Ups Ian Hunter
always sounded like contract
filler, a mannered distraction Maggie’s Farm
at best. Bowie’s decision to Hard Rain
revisit old mod-era fave raves
was water off the proverbial
for Ronson, who maps out the
Cleveland Rocks
You’re Never Alone
better songs – Rosalyn, I Wish With A Schizophrenic
You Would and Where Have
All The Good Times Gone –
without suggesting that either I Feel Free
Black Tie White Noise
he or anyone else involved
will usurp the originals.
Additionally, the production Like A Rolling
is weak and tinny, so despite Stone
the good taste on show the Heaven And Hull
results are clunky.
This is an album damned It Ain’t Easy
with faint praise. You’re hardly Bowie At The Beeb
in an amphetamine rush to
slap it on the turntable.
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 103
 STUFF
DVDs
BOOKS &
What Does This
Button Do?
Bruce Dickinson HARPERCOLLINS
Iron Maiden frontman’s autobiography is light
on all things Maiden, but probably better for it.
O
ne way and another, Bruce
Dickinson has pushed a lot of
buttons: as a singer, airline
pilot, fencer, broadcaster, author,
screenwriter, songwriter, actor, you
name it. He’s driven and determined
when it comes to achieving the target he
sets himself, whether it’s becoming an
international rock star, getting
a commercial pilot’s licence or curing
his throat cancer. He’s also a very affable
bloke with a wry sense of humour who
can take the piss out of himself.
What Does This Button Do? is not so
much an autobiography – although it
begins like one – but a series of
memoirs. Some of them are scenes from
his life, such as his first terrifying pilot
encounter with turbulence leaving him
powerless as his plane is literally blown
over the mountains, or his vivid tale of
going to play a gig in Sarajevo at the
height of the siege. His eye for detail
enriches his writing, his attention to
detail can be forensic, as the account of
his battle with throat cancer reveals.
Iron Maiden fans should note that no
dirt is dished here. There are no band
politics once he has established his place
on stage alongside Steve Harris and
drummer Clive Burr has been
104 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
manoeuvred out. There is, however,
a brilliant description of his first
meeting with manager Rob Smallwood
and a scathing put-down of NWOBHM.
There’s no insight into his
relationship with Harris, and even his
growing dissatisfaction with the band’s
direction is barely hinted at before he
suddenly decides to quit after finding
a quote from Henry Miller in the LA
Times that reads, ‘All growth is a leap in
the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated
act without the benefit of experience’. No
mention of the unpleasantness on their
final tour either. Indeed you’ll find out
more about fencing and flying a plane
than you will about life in a rock band,
although he does admit that being a rock
star ‘is not all it’s cracked up to be’.
Similarly there are no references to
wives, children, the Osbornes or Nikki
Sixx. Dickinson has set his own limits
and he sticks to them. Some might
argue that part of the picture is missing,
but the clues that point to his future
character traits during his time at public
school – which he hated but refused to
leave because he hated going home even
more – fill in many of the gaps.
QQQQQQQQQQ
Hugh Fielder
Earthbound:
David Bowie And
The Man Who
Fell To Earth
Susan Compo
JAWBONE PRESS
Mad times in New Mexico, ’75.
Firstly, this is not a book about
David Bowie although his skinny
presence is everywhere. It is
a fascinating account of the
making of Nic Roeg’s Bowie-
starring problematic ’76 film The
Man Who Fell To Earth. Author
Susan Compo unravels the
craziness that engulfed the film:
the technical problems, the
dangerous hangers-on, the sex
and drugs but not the rock’n’roll,
since Bowie’s mooted score
proved to be a figment of his
addled imagination; he never
forgave Roeg for entrusting that
job to Papa John Phillips.
The strands are interwoven
with gleaming prose, the writer
mining detail like a forensic
scientist. No potentially
illuminating interview is left
unturned, no ego unruffled. She
makes you want to watch the
film again. Do so accompanied
by this grounded masterpiece.
QQQQQQQQQQ
Max Bell
The Who
Tommy – Live At The
Royal Albert Hall EAGLE ROCK
The original rock opera gets its
first airing since 1989.
“I was abused as
a child,” Pete
Townshend
admits, explaining
why it’s been
difficult for him to
perform Tommy in full since
1970, and making 2017’s first
performance in 27 years (plus
40 minutes of hits) all the more
poignant. Starry casts including
Steve Winwood, Rod Stewart,
Phil Collins, Ringo Starr and
Elton John have at various times
brought music’s first rock opera
to life, but here The Who
eschew gimmicky cameos and
let Daltrey and Townshend fully
inhabit rock’s most celebrated
olfactory pinball supremo.
It makes for an amazing
journey as Rog ’n’ Pete rattle
breathlessly through the titular
Tommy’s life – from birth to
extreme PTSD to becoming
Messiah of the flippers –
knocking out such scintillating
prog-pop pieces as Christmas,
Sensation and Go To The Mirror!
like casual filler. The Acid Queen
loses a little menace in
Townshend’s hands, but Daltrey
brings a bombastic wickedness
to Cousin Kevin’s torture prog and
a sadistic Yewtree growl to
Uncle Ernie. Snippets of pastoral
country, music hall and breezy
blues dab extra colours onto
Tommy’s palette as it barrels
towards its towering conclusion,
and it’s not hard to see why
most of the 70s strived to
emulate it. Even without Elton’s
gigantic glitter boots in sight it’s
a dazzling feat.
QQQQQQQQQQ
Mark Beaumont
Transformer
Lou Reed and Mick Rock
GENESIS PUBLICATIONS
A connoisseur’s catalogue
of cool.
The first time
many of us
clapped our eyes
on Lou Reed was
via Mick Rock’s
camera lens.
Transformer’s haunting, kabuki-
style cover image was captured
during Lou’s debut London show,
at King’s Cross in July ‘72. Reed,
hastily dressed to impress in
a rhinestone jacket by Angie
Bowie, gazes into middle
distance, the Velvets in his rear-
view mirror, on the cusp of solo
greatness. It’s the ultimate Lou
Reed shot, yet its position is far
from uncontested.
There’s the fabulous Rock ‘N’
Roll Heart-era shoot: Reed in
shades, a leather jacket so small
it could’ve been made for a child,
under a see-through plastic
jacket from Ian’s of St. Mark’s
Place, an NYC boutique that did
fetish before McLaren and
Westwood, just as Lou did punk
before Pistols and Ramones.
There’s bleached ‘74 Lou: mean
‘n’ moody, dead-eyed ‘n’
skeletal, magnificent.
Name a great Lou shot, it was
probably Mick Rock’s, and in this
implausibly plush volume, Rock
and Reed rap a great
accompanying commentary to
all the best. The humour’s
whiskey-dry, Warhol-weaned
Lou reveals a photographer’s eye
and it’s only a joy. Expensive,
yes, but once you’ve bought the
box sets what else have you got
to spend your money on?
QQQQQQQQQQ
Ian Fortnam
Steely Dan FAQ
Anthony Robustelli BACKBEAT
BRUCE DICKINSON: JOHN McMURTRIE/PRESS
Reading in the years.
Many is the music fan who has
dismissed Steely Dan as boring
soft-rock jazzers, until one
Damascene day the penny drops
and their deft genius declares
itself. Once you’re in the church,
there’s no leaving. Zappa gave
them “98/100” while William
Burroughs loved them “doing too
many things at once”.
This oddly-structured, list-
heavy book details the group’s
career since 1972; The Dan’s
mythical perfectionism and
illogical popularity, their
intermission and their 90s
return. It goes deeper on chords,
studio sessions and recording
techniques than on personal
stuff, and those seeking insight
into the life of recently deceased
Walter Becker won’t find any.
The book is too kind to the two
lacklustre 21st-century albums,
but earns that opinion with its
forensic study of their golden
age. Robust.
QQQQQQQQQQ
Chris Roberts
Jeff Beck
Live At Hollywood Bowl
EAGLE ROCK
Virtuoso’s star-studded
50th-anniversary celebration.
Magnificent but
modest Jeff Beck
suits Hollywood
Bowl’s illustrious
surrounds
effortlessly, oozing
sharp-shooter cool and firing off
meticulously crafted, lethally
targeted licks.
Beck delivers a career-spanning
set, with young, funky, free-rolling
accompanists easily
accommodating both Steve Tyler
on a crowd-rousing Train Kept
A Rollin and declamatory cuts
from the guitarist’s latest album
Loudhailer. Wet Willie veteran
Jimmy Hall sparks Beck’s
pyrotechnics, old sparring
partner Jan Hammer his
dynamic relish and thrill-seeking
interplay. Beck’s tenderest touch
gilds Beth Hart’s cover of I’d
Rather Go Blind, and Buddy Guy
(snazzy in a black-on-white
polka shirt, reflecting JB’s white
on black) brokers a battle of the
big guns.
“It will be another fifty years
before we get a guitarist like
this,” reckons ZZ Top’s Billy
Gibbons, and it’s very hard to
argue with him.
QQQQQQQQQQ
Gavin Martin
L7
Pretend We’re Dead MVD
They did it their way.
The kids owe L7 a lot, which
elevates this Blu-ray
documentary above the typical
‘rags to riches to rags’ story
most rock-docs end up telling.
Well, that’s what happened to L7
too, but there’s a cultural and
political edge to this band that
shouldn’t be diminished.
L7 were staunch feminists in
a way that seemed almost
effortless. It wasn’t – as Pretend
We’re Dead ably demonstrates in
90s interview footage, no
journalist ever let them forget
they were an ‘all-girl’ band – but
L7 just assumed they could rock
as hard as the boys, and then
they went and did it. And it was
magnificent. These days it’s just
assumed that you can transcend
gender if you rock hard enough.
And L7 are the reason. If you
weren’t a fan of the band before
watching this, you will be by the
time it’s over.
As told mostly with smeary-
but-beautiful vintage footage
and new voice-overs, the band
leap from obscurity to fame and
back with pluck and an
infectious sense of adventure.
Best of all, nobody even died. An
ear got torn off at one point, but
that’s pretty minor as far as rock
careers go.
QQQQQQQQQQ
Sleazegrinder
XTC
This Is Pop SPECIAL TREATS
Heart-warming documentary
on new-wave misfits-turned-
national treasure.
“Rockumentaries, I really dislike
them,” says scowling XTC
frontman Andy Partridge at the
outset of this engaging 70-
minute trawl through the
Swindon oddballs’ back pages.
“They always have that
lugubrious keyboard player from
that prog rock group…”
Sure enough, the next talking
head to appear is Rick Wakeman.
It’s a neat trick. But despite
Partridge’s protestations it can’t
hide the fact that over the
course of a 30-year career his
band fell prey to almost every
rock cliché imaginable. So we
hear about intra-band tensions
caused by their label, Virgin,
encouraging “good-looking”
bassist Colin Moulding to take
centre stage, cancelled US
tours caused by Partridge’s
drug-induced meltdown, and
the departure of guitarist Dave
Gregory likened to “losing a limb”.
In one Tufnel-esque moment,
Partridge, describing his
songwrting process, even likens
the sound of a guitar chord to
“a pool of muddy water”.
With star fans including
Stewart Copeland, Clem Burke
and, yes, Harry Shearer on hand
to sing the praises of this most
English of bands, This Is Pop is
a hoot from start to finish.
QQQQQQQQQQ
Paul Moody
 The High-Voltage
What’s On Guide
Edited By Ian Fortnam (Reviews) and Dave Ling (Tours)

p 114
Dan Reed
Was it akin to a religious experience
when he played a church in London?

108 Interviews
p

p111 Tour Dates

p114 Live Reviews

ALISON CLARKE
 LIVE!

“The thing
that makes the
Doobies is the
amount of
inf luences in
our music. We
never sought
one particular
direction.”

The Doobie Brothers

The band preview their first UK shows in seven years, including BluesFest dates.

A
s part of the Californian band’s first UK
visit since 2010, the Doobie Brothers are
to co-headline this year’s BluesFest in
London and Dublin, alongside Steely Dan. Their
co-founding guitarist, lead singer and keyboard
player Tom Johnston sets the scene.
Last month the Doobies played stadium shows
in California and New York alongside the
Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan, Journey
and Earth, Wind & Fire. Were you able to
watch the new-look Eagles?
Yeah. I saw them in New York and they were
phenomenal. Vince Gill fitted right in – as you’d
expect, as he’s an amazing singer and musician.
Glenn Frey’s son Deacon also did a great, confident
job. They put on quite a show. I was very impressed.
Steely Dan had Larry Carlton depping for
Walter Becker, who of course recently
passed on. Did you know Walter well?
No, I didn’t. Our bands toured together back in
the 1970s and I haven’t seen Walter since, but
I’m a huge fan of Steely Dan. As we started, they
were getting started and a lot of their tunes really
resonated with me.
Donald Fagen says that he intends to keep
You guys in London and Dublin are in for a treat Listen To The Music and DOOBIE DATA
– I can’t imagine fans of either band going away China Grove. The Doobies were
disappointed. The BluesFest shows will be great. formed in 1970.
None of their
Bill Payne of Little Feat members, past or
Is it stretching things a little to call the Doobies is the band’s touring present, are brothers.
a blues band? keyboardist. That’s Past line-ups have
Yeah, I guess so [laughs]. The thing that’s made the quite a coup. included Michael
Doobies what they are is the amount of influences What a phenomenal addition McDonald and Jeff
that go into our music. Blues, and rhythm and Billy is – he played on just ‘Skunk’ Baxter.
blues, is certainly one of them, but there’s also about every album we ever
folk blues, and John McFee [guitarist] comes did, including most of the ones for Warner Brothers,
from a country background and has played on and it’s great to hear that sound of his coming from
many, many rock albums that you would know that corner of the stage each night.
all about. It’s a conglomerate of sound, but it all
fits together really well. We never sought one Now seven years old, World Gone Crazy is the
particular direction. band’s last record of original material. Will
there be a follow-up?
Why has it been seven years since the Doobies Yes, and we’re already working on the songs. What
last toured the UK? stymies that is the fact that we’re on the road all the
Well, it’s a good question and I wish that I knew time. We end for the year in November and we’ll hit
the answer. We really need to spend more time the studio right afterwards.
over there than we do, but at least on this trip we
are also doing some dates of our own [in York, As we’ve discussed, it seems like almost
Glasgow and Manchester]. nobody is indispensable in rock’n’roll any
more. Would you like the Doobies to carry
At those recent open-air shows in the States, on after you’re gone?
almost all of the band’s set comprised FM [After a slightly shocked silence] Nobody’s ever
radio hits. Do you still believe in playing the asked me that before and to be honest, I’ve never
songs that people want to hear?
ANDREW MACPHERSON/PRESS

Steely Dan’s music alive for as long as he
is able and will definitely be at BluesFest.
How were they with Carlton on guitar?
I wanted to get out and watch them at the
soundboard but had to make do with a monitor
in the dressing room, but they sounded great.
Well, that wasn’t your average show. At our own
shows we can get away with playing a few more
deep cuts, but we know that anywhere we go,
people want to hear the hits. And if you want to
get a response then just whip out Long Train Runnin’,
really considered it. All I can say is that I don’t
plan on going anywhere, and I’ll keep on doing
this until I no longer can. DL
The Doobie Brothers play BluesFest Dublin on
October 28 and London 29.

108 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
 INTERVIEWS

Redd Kross
The Californians look ahead
to their UK support shows.

B
assist/vocalist Steven McDonald
checks in as the power-poppers
prepare for some rare British
appearances as guests of The Melvins.

The Melvins and Redd Kross touring

together means double duty for you, with
Dale Krover also playing drums for both
groups. That sounds like hard work.
We’ll have to see. I’ve done one-off shows
before but never a full tour. Dale tells me
I should survive it.

The two bands play together a lot. Why

are they so compatible?
Well, for a start there are practical reasons
– it’s cheaper to take one rhythm section.
But although we might have a different
approach to loud guitars, we’re both from
Dweezil Zappa
the same graduation class. Get ready for 50 years of Frank and the Mothers.
Will we hear more of Redd Kross’s
punkier side, as opposed to the

bubblegum element?
Ha! No. My brother Jeff [vocals/guitar]
just reissued Teen Babes From Monsanto,
an eight-song mini-album of ours from
1984, and we’ll do that in its entirety,
plus other songs from the catalogue.
What prompted the change from the
band’s early raw style to the more
flamboyant approach?
Mostly it was a natural progression but
we had also become disillusioned by
changes in the LA punk scene. Suddenly
the people that had beaten us up at high
school two years earlier were into TSOL
and Black Flag, so we dug more into the
music we’d grown up with.
Redd Kross were an influence on
Nirvana, Sonic Youth and many others.
Why did the band never make the big
breakthrough first time around?
Some of it was our doing and we never felt
too comfortable on major labels. Other
parts of it are down to timing.
A new album that’s tentatively titled
Octavia is being planned. What is Redd
Kross’s motivation now?
Fear of death, I guess.
Are you still trying to write the perfect
pop song?
Sure. Isn’t everybody? But it’s not an
easy goal. DL
The tour ends in London on October 31.
T
he 47-year-old son of late
music icon Frank Zappa
returns with an outing
billed as 50 Years Of Frank:
Dweezil Zappa Plays Whatever
The F@&k He Wants.
This tour celebrates the half-
century since your dad’s band
The Mothers Of Invention first
appeared in the UK. Are you
playing their Freak Out! album,
which was issued the previous
year, in its entirety?
Not all of it, no. We are revisiting his
earliest period. The first forty-five
minutes is a bunch of early Mothers
stuff, including material from Freak
Out!, followed by the sixties era
into the seventies and the eighties.
There’s room for spontaneity?
Oh yeah. Each night we choose
from around thirty songs and
a lot of the music itself requires
improvisation – the interplay
between the ensemble is a part
of the composition. We do have
a set-list, but we can jump around
a bit with it depending on how
we’re feeling.
A couple of months ago, via
your website, you invited male
singer/multi-instrumentalists
to audition for your band. How
did that go?
Generally I audition people based
upon word of mouth or who
I know, but I thought it might be
interesting to throw the net a little
wider. You never know where you’ll
find the next talented guy. For
instance, my dad found Napoleon
Murphy Brock [singer/saxophonist]
in a small club in Hawaii.
Were the auditions successful?
We received lots and lots of videos
and we saw many people. I didn’t
“The first forty-
five minutes of
the show is early
Mothers stuff.”
select anyone from that process
for this UK tour, but we found
a guy called Adam Minkoff who
will be involved with us in the
future, should his schedule allow.
Since 2006 you’ve dedicated
your life to maintaining
the legacy of your father.
How do you think he would
feel about that?
Ultimately I think he would
appreciate the levels of
commitment that come from
the band. At a certain point in
his career he began referring
to musicians as mercenaries
– so many of them were just
on the clock.
Your own career has been put
on hold. Is there a part of you
that’s left artistically unfulfilled
by such a responsibility?
I don’t look at it that way. This has
been an enormous education, and
when I do make more of my own
music, and I will, I will have an
entire new toolbox.
Frank exerted such a cultural
effect on rock music. Will we
ever see his like again?
I don’t know. There’s no more
artistic development. It’s possible
that someone’s out there, but my
dad was so politically minded…
he stood for truth and integrity, in
music and in life. That’s another
element that makes it harder to find
another like-minded individual. DL
The tour begins on October 8.

CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 109
 LIVE!
Mount Holly
Former Silvertide man Nick Perri looks ahead to a pair of dates.
N
ick Perri was a member
of Silvertide. The
guitarist later played with
Perry Farrell and Shinedown,
then alongside Matt Sorum in
The Darling Stilettos. Now he
introduces his latest venture,
a rootsy Southern Californian
alternative rock band.
These two shows are Mount
Holly’s third trip to the UK.
We’re thrilled to be coming back.
I came with Silvertide, and Jameson
[Burt, singer] has been here a bunch
of times as a solo artist.
Silvertide appeared to have it
all: signed by Clive Davis, gigs
with Aerosmith, Van Halen and
Journey, and a triumphant set at
Download. What went wrong?
It was a combination of
personalities and music business
conflict. When that band was
firing on all cylinders, it coincided
with the start of Napster and
downloading. Things were already
going wrong within the band, so
that didn’t help.
Classic Rock said of Silvertide:
“They sound like the bands that
wrote the book on hard rock
110 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
excess – Zeppelin, Aerosmith,
GN’R.” Mount Holly are
obviously very different.
The progression feels very natural.
I grew up on my parents’ record
collections and Pink Floyd is my
favourite band of all time, but I’ve
taken in new inspirations. This
is the first band I’ve been in that
allows me to vent my appreciation
for James Brown.
It’s interesting that you label
yourselves ‘alternative rock’.
Forming a band is like a marriage,
and Jameson has a whole other
“We spent a year
on the album and
came up with
a fresh sound.”
set of influences. We spent a year
making our album and we came up
with a sound that we consider fresh.
Is Perry Farrell as interesting
a character as he appears to be?
He’s the sweetest guy in the whole
world. Perry defines the spirit of
alternative music, but those tunes
are very much blues-based and
very much rock’n’roll. They were
just presented in a manner that
was fresh and exciting. I’m not
comparing Mount Holly to Jane’s
Addiction, but the two bands have
a spirit that’s similar.
Did you enjoy your spell
with Shinedown?
Yeah. I love those guys but
musically speaking, it wasn’t
where I wanted to head, so there
was an amicable parting of the
ways. I’d rather play the Water
Rats [a small club] with my own
songs than headline Wembley as
part of someone else’s band. And
without blowing our own trumpet
too loudly, I believe Mount Holly is
capable of making it to Wembley.
The album has been finished for
a while. When will we hear it?
We’re still figuring that out. Timing
is everything, and we have agreed
to wait until the right moment.
We’ve had a lot of success in the
sync world recently, landing songs
on TV shows and commercials. It’s
coming soon, though. DL
Mount Holly play London on
October 18, Mansfield 21.
Jonny Lang
The bluesman gets back to
his roots on his latest tour.
W
ith Eric Clapton among his
many admirers, Jonny Lang
has enjoyed a meteoric career.
Although his style is rooted in the blues, the
North Dakota-born guitarist/vocalist adds
a contemporary twist. His latest record,
Signs, is a homecoming. Of sorts.
What’s it like to achieve a platinum record
at the age of fifteen, and to be nominated
for a Grammy two years later?
It’s a fantastic feeling. When all of that
[success] started, I was just elated.
Does a part of you also think: the only way
from here is down?
[Laughs] I’ve had that feeling on a couple of
occasions, yeah.
The new album Signs has a song called
Snakes that’s about the times when
humility failed you. It’s pretty cool you
would admit that.
Well, doesn’t everyone go through that at
some point? I learned a lot of life lessons
a lot earlier than I might have done under
usual circumstances.
You’re now thirty-six. Fans of your music
from the start have seen you get married,
have five kids, fight addiction and discover
God. You don’t mind sharing all that?
My songs can be pretty bare. I just write
what’s in my heart.
Has owning up to being a Christian cost
you some fans?
Maybe it has. But if someone asks me about
that, I’ll tell them the truth. My relationship
with God is pretty important to me.
Would you say that Signs sees you return
to your blues roots?
Yeah. I’ve tried to grow as a songwriter,
but in spite of that refinement, the blues is
central to what I do.
MOUNT HOLLY: JACOPO LLORENZINI/PRESS; JONNY LANG: DANIELLA HOVSEPIAN/PRESS
Stronger Together is a slice of funky pop
music, while Bring Me Home is almost a
gospel tune – you refuse to be typecast.
True, but I hope there’s continuity. I just
write songs and record them.
There aren’t a whole lot of solos, but
there’s a lot of guitar on the album.
There are quite a few solos but they’re not
extended ones. At this point, my goal is
to integrate the solo into the song. DL
Jonny Lang plays London Shepherd’s Bush
Empire on November 4.
 RECO
MME
NDS

Tour Dates
…
IAN ANDERSON & JETHRO TULL

AIRBOURNE, PHIL CAMBELL Nottingham Rock City Nov 3

& THE BASTARD SONS, THE WILD! London Brixton Academy Nov 4
Bristol Academy Nov 11
Glasgow Academy Nov 13 BLACK STAR RIDERS, TAX THE HEAT,
Manchester Academy Nov 14 BLUES PILLS, DIRTY THRILLS
London Chalk Farm Roundhouse Nov 15 Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall Nov 8
Norwich UEA Nov 18 Edinburgh Queen’s Hall Nov 9
Oxford Academy Nov 19 Warrington Parr Hall Nov 10
Sheffield Academy Nov 20 Hull University Nov 12
Nottingham Rock City Nov 22 Middlesbrough Empire Nov 14
Sheffield Academy Nov 15
AIRRACE, LIONHEART Leicester Academy Nov 16
Cardiff Fuel Nov 30 Cambridge Junction Nov 18
Wolverhampton Slade Rooms Dec 1 Portsmouth Pyramid Centre Nov 19
London Camden Underworld Dec 2
Sheffield Academy Dec 3 BLUESFEST
Newcastle The Cluny Dec 5 STEELY DAN, THE DOOBIE BROTHERS,
Edinburgh Bannerman’s Dec 6 GOV’T MULE, CHRIS ISAAC, MORE
London O2 Arena Oct 27-29
IAN ANDERSON & JETHRO TULL
Manchester Apollo Apr 3 BLUESFEST DUBLIN
Newcastle City Hall Apr 5 STEELY DAN, THE DOOBIE BROTHERS
Edinburgh Usher Hall Apr 6 Dublin 3 Arena Oct 29 Dust down your medieval garb, grab a horn of mead (drink
Liverpool Auditorium Apr 7
Bristol Colston Hall Apr 9 BLUES PILLS responsibly, okay?) and get down to a Tull gig near you.
Birmingham Symphony Hall Apr 10 London Camden Jazz Café Nov 21
Cambridge Corn Exchange Apr 11 See left for dates, currently April 3-17.
London Royal Albert Hall Apr 17 JOE BONAMASSA
Cardiff Motorpoint Arena Mar 9
ANTI-FLAG Manchester Arena Mar 10 JOHN COGHLAN’S QUO, Belfast Voodoo Lounge Nov 24
Manchester The Ritz Oct 11 Carlisle Sands Centre Mar 11 ALAN LANCASTER Limerick Dolans Warehouse Nov 25
Bristol Academy Oct 12 Aberdeen GE Oil & Gas Centre Mar 13 Minehead Butlins Quo Convention Oct 13-16 Dundee Beat Generator Nov 30
Leicester Academy Oct 13 Gateshead The Sage Mar 14 Edinburgh La Belle Angèle Dec 1
Leeds Academy Oct 14 Birmingham Genting Arena Mar 16 ALICE COOPER, THE MISSION, Sheffield HRH Festival Dec 2
London Kentish Town Forum Oct 16, 17 Brighton Centre Mar 17 THE TUBES Bilston Robin 2 Dec 7
Newcastle Academy Oct 18 First Direct Arena Nov 11 Southampton 1865 Club Dec 8
Glasgow Academy Oct 19 GRAHAM BONNET BAND, Glasgow The Hydro Nov 12
KINGS OF BROADWAY Birmingham Barclaycard Arena Nov 14 THE DOOBIE BROTHERS
DAN BAIRD & HOMEMADE SIN South Shields Queen Vic Nov 18 Manchester Arena Nov 15 Dublin Bluesfest Oct 28
Sheffield The Greystones Nov 7 Wigan Pure Nov 19 London Wembley Arena Nov 16 London Bluesfest Oct 29
Leicester The Musician Nov 8 Stoke-on-Trent Eleven Nov 21 York Barbican Oct 31
Glasgow ABC2 Nov 9 Evesham Iron Road Nov 22 CRADLE OF FILTH, SAVAGE MESSIAH Glasgow Academy Nov 3
London Shepherd’s Bush Bush Hall Nov 10 Leicester The Musician Nov 23 Belfast Limelight Oct 30 Manchester Apollo Nov 4
Newcastle The Cluny Nov 11 Belfast Limelight 2 Nov 24 Dublin Academy Oct 31
Manchester Academy 3 Nov 12 Troon Winter Storm Festival Nov 25 Manchester Academy 2 Nov 2 BRIAN DOWNEY’S
Pontypridd Municipal Arts Centre Nov 26 Glasgow Garage Nov 3 ALIVE AND DANGEROUS
JIMMY BARNES Grimbsy Yardbirds Club Nov 28 Birmingham Institute 2 Nov 4 London Kensington Nell’s Jazz & Blues Nov 24, 25
London Islington Academy Dec 13 London Camden Underworld Nov 29 Leeds Church Nov 5
Glasgow King Tat’s Wah Wah Hut Dec 15 Sheffield Corporation Nov 30 Oxford Academy Nov 7 DRAGONFORCE
Edinburgh Pleasance Theatre Dec 16 Southampton Engine Rooms Nov 8 Birmingham Academy 2 Oct 11
Glasgow Cottiers Theatre Dec 17 BROKEN WITT REBELS Norwich Waterfront Nov 9 Cardiff Globe Oct 12
Belfast Limelight Dec 19 Norwich Waterfront Oct 11 London Camden Electric Ballroom Nov 10 London Camden Electric Ballroom Oct 13
Dublin Whelans Dec 20 London Shoreditch Old Blue Last Oct 13 Bristol Bierkeller Nov 11 Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms Oct 14
Wolverhampton Slade Rooms Oct 14 Tunbridge Wells Forum Oct 15
MARTIN BARRE BAND Newcastle The Cluny Oct 20 CREEPER
Stockton-on-Tees The ARC Nov 2 Sheffield Corporation Oct 21 Glasgow ABC Dec 3 ELECTRIC BOYS
Derby Flowerpot Nov 3 Glasgow Stereo Oct 22 Birmingham Institute Dec 4 Sheffield Local Authority Nov 26
Fletching Trading Boundaries Nov 4 Leeds Brudenell Social Club Oct 23 Bristol Trinity Dec 5 Newcastle The Cluny Nov 27
Bilston Robin 2 Nov 5 Birmingham Academy 3 Oct 30 London Shepherd’s Bush Empire Dec 7 Glasgow ABC 2 Nov 28
Preston Guildhall Nov 6 Southampton Joiners Arms Nov 27 Manchester Albert Hall Dec 9 Wolverhampton Slade Rooms Nov 29
Brighton Prince Albert Nov 29 Southampton Guildhall Dec 10 Chester Live Rooms Nov 30
BIG BOY BLOATER & THE LIMITS Bristol Thekla Dec 8 Porthcawl Planet Rockstock Festival Dec 2
Sheffield The Greystones Oct 12 Manchester Ruby Lounge Dec 9, 10 DAMNATION FESTIVAL Nottingham Rescue Rooms Dec 3
Darlington The Forum Oct 13 BLOODBATH, SODOM, PARADISE LOST, London Camden Underworld Dec 4
Hull New Adelphi Oct 14 BROTHER FIRETRIBE NORDIC GIANTS, MORE
London Manette Street Borderline Oct 21 Leeds University Union Nov 4 ENSLAVED
BIGFOOT Nottingham Rockingham Festival Oct 22 London Islington Assembly Hall Nov 24
Manchester Sound Control Oct 14 THE DARKNESS,
Witney Fat Lil’s Oct 19 THE CADILLAC THREE, BLACKFOOT GYPSIES EXTREME, DAN REED NETWORK
London Camden Underworld Oct 26 BROTHERS OSBORNE Southampton Guildhall Nov 23 Newcastle Academy Dec 13
Grimsby Yardbirds Club Oct 28 Belfast Mandela Hall Nov 9 Manchester Academy 1 Nov 24 Glasgow Academy Dec 14
Stoke-on-Trent Eleven Nov 2 Cardiff Y Plas Nov 12 Blackburn King George’s Hall Nov 25 Leeds Academy Dec 16
Cardiff Fuel Nov 3 Nottingham Rock City Nov 13 Leeds Academy Nov 27 Birmingham Academy Dec 17
Cannock The Station Nov 4 London Kentish Town Forum Nov 14 Newcastle Academy Nov 28 Bristol Academy Dec 18
South Shields The Queen Vic Nov 5 Norwich UEA Nov 15 Glasgow Academy Nov 29 London Brixton Academy Dec 20
Glasgow Hard Rock Café Nov 9 Birmingham Academy Nov 17 Stoke-on-Trent Victoria Hall Dec 1
Sheffield Corporation Nov 11 Manchester Academy Nov 18 Nottingham Rock City Dec 2 FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM
Troon Winter Storm Festival Nov 24 Newcastle Academy Nov 19 Norwich UEA Dec 3 London Kentish Town Forum Dec 21
Edinburgh La Belle Angele Nov 24 Glasgow ABC Nov 20 Guildford G Live Dec 5
Margate Winter Gardens Dec 6 FISH
CARAVAN Southend-on-Sea Cliffs Pavilion Dec 7 Leeds Metropolitan University Dec 8

Recommended
Fletching Trading Boundaries Nov 14 Birmingham Academy Dec 9 Manchester The Ritz Dec 9
Harpenden Public Halls Nov 16 London Hammersmith Apollo Dec 10 Leamington The Assembly Dec 10
Pwllheli Hard Rock Hell Prog Nov 17 Brighton Dome Dec 11 Cardiff Tramshed Dec 12
BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION Bury The Met Nov 18 Cardiff St David’s Hall Dec 13 Bristol Academy Dec 13
Wolverhampton Civic Hall Jan 2 Bath Komedia Nov 19 Bristol Colston Hall Dec 14 London Islington Assembly Hall Dec 15, 16
London Hammersmith Apollo Jan 4 Norwich Arts Centre Nov 20 Cambridge Corn Exchange Dec 19
London Kensington Nell’s Jazz & Blues Nov 22 DEEP PURPLE, EUROPE Newcastle Wylam Brewery Dec 20
Birmingham Barclaycard Arena Nov 17 Glasgow ABC Dec 21
ROGER CHAPMAN, Manchester Arena Nov 18
BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB FAMILY & FRIENDS Cardiff Motorpoint Arena Nov 20 FOCUS
Dublin Academy Oct 23 Leicester Academy Jan 11 Glasgow The Hydro Nov 22 Wavendon The Stables Oct 9
Belfast Limelight Oct 24 London Shepherd’s Bush Empire Jan 13 London O2 Arena Nov 23 Newcastle The Cluny Oct 10
Glasgow Barrowland Oct 26 Newcastle Academy Jan 17 Ayr Gaiety Theatre Oct 11
Manchester Academy Oct 27 DELAIN, MARCO HIETALA Glasgow The Ferry Oct 12
Birmingham Academy Oct 28 CLITHEROE BLUES FESTIVAL London Camden Koko Nov 1 Kinross Green Hotel Oct 13
Leeds Academy Oct 30 BERNIE MARSDEN, DR FEELGOOD, Wigan Old Courts Oct 14
Brighton Dome Oct 31 DANNY BRYANT, MORE DIAMOND HEAD Bilston Robin 2 Oct 15
Bristol Academy Nov 2 Clitheroe The Grand Oct 15 Dublin Fibber McGee’s Nov 23 London Oxford Street 100 Club Oct 18

CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 111
 LIVE! RECO
MME
Cardiff The Globe Oct 19 NDS Weston-super-Mare Playhouse Theatre Nov 24
Fletching Trading Boundaries Oct 20, 21 Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre Nov 25

FROST*
W.A.S.P. Folkestone Leas Cliff Pavilion Nov 26

London Camden Dingwalls Nov 24 SIMON McBRIDE

Worcester Huntingdon Hall Nov 2
ERIC GALES St Helens Citadel Nov 3
Dublin Whelan’s Oct 24 Bilston Robin 2 Nov 6
Limerick Dolans Warehouse Oct 25 Hull Fruit Nov 7
Cork Cyprus Ave Oct 26 London Islington Academy Nov 8
Holmfirth Picturedrome Oct 27 Sheffield The Greystones Nov 9
Bournemouth Mr Kyps Oct 29 Ilfracombe Blues Festival Nov 11
Sutton Boom Boom Club Oct 31 Bristol The Tunnels Nov 13
Bilston Robin 2 Nov 2
CHANTEL McGREGOR
GOGOL BORDELLO Aberdeen Café Drummond Oct 20
Manchester Academy Dec 12 Inverness Ironworks Oct 21
London Brixton Academy Dec 14 Glasgow ABC 2 Oct 22
Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall Dec 15 Morecambe The Platform Oct 27
Nottingham Rock City Dec 16 Keighley The Octagon Oct 28
Glasgow Academy Dec 17 Bristol The Tunnels Dec 10
Derby Flowerpot Dec 14
GOV’T MULE Barton-upon-Humber Ropery Hall Dec 15
Dublin Academy Oct 22 Leeds Brudenell Social Club Dec 16
Edinburgh Queen’s Hall Oct 24
Manchester The Ritz Oct 26 THE MELVINS, RED KROSS
Cardiff Tramshed Oct 27 Bristol Exchange Oct 9
London O2 Arena Bluesfest Oct 28 Leeds Brudenell Social Club Oct 10
Glasgow SWG3 Oct 11
GUN Manchester Gorilla Oct 12
Glasgow Barrowland Dec 2 Shy, retiring Blackie Lawless (not his real name – not a lot of Birmingham Institute 2 Oct 13
Manchester Club Academy Dec 8 London Camden Electric Brixton Oct 31
London Camden Electric Ballroom Dec 9 people know that) and co. return with their metal mayhem.
METALLICA, KVELERTAK
HARD ROCK HELL See opposite page for dates, currently October 12-27.
London O2 Arena Oct 22, 24
AIRBOURNE, BLACK STAR RIDERS, Y&T, Glasgow The Hydro Oct 26
DEE SNIDER, MORE Manchester Arena Oct 28
Pwllheli Hafan Y Môr Holiday Park Nov 9-12 Glasgow The Hydro Dec 18 London Kentish Town Forum Nov 15 Birmingham Genting Arena Oct 30
Leeds Arena Dec 20
HARD ROCK HELL NWOBHM London Wembley Arena Dec 21 LYNCH MOB, ROCK GODDESS, WILD LIES MIKE + THE MECHANICS
RAVEN, DIAMOND HEAD, LIONHEART, Wolverhampton Slade Rooms Nov 9 London Shepherd’s Bush Empire Oct 10
AVENGER, MORE INGLORIOUS Sheffield Local Authority Nov 10
Sheffield Academy Dec 2, 3 Glasgow Classic Grand Oct 10 London Islington Academy Nov 12 MOGWAI
York Fibbers Oct 11 London Brixton Academy Dec 15
HARD ROCK HELL PROG Nottingham Rescue Rooms Oct 12 MARILYN MANSON Glasgow The Hydro Dec 16
CARL PALMER’S ELP LEGACY, CARAVAN, London Camden Electric Ballroom Oct 20 Manchester Apollo Dec 4
FOCUS, MORE Glasgow Academy Dec 5 MOTORPSYCHO, SLEEP TOKEN
Pwllheli Hafan Y Môr Holiday Park Nov 16-19 INSANE CLOWN POSSE, Wolverhampton Civic Hall Dec 6 London Islington Academy Oct 23
MUSHROOMHEAD Newport Centre Dec 8
BETH HART Glasgow ABC Nov 15 London Wembley Arena Dec 9 MOUNT HOLLY
Leeds Town Hall Oct 30 Bristol Academy Nov 16 London King’s Cross Water Rats Oct 18
Bath Forum Nov 1 Manchester The Ritz Nov 17 MARILLION Mansfield Old Library Oct 21
Coventry Cathedral Nov 3 Birmingham Institute Nov 18 London Royal Albert Hall Oct 13
London Royal Albert Hall May 4 London Kentish Town Forum Nov 19 London Palladium Nov 7
Manchester Academy Nov 8
HAWKLORDS
Sutton-in-Ashfield The Diamond Oct 19
IQ
London Islington Assembly Hall Dec 9
Gateshead
Cambridge
The Sage
Corn Exchange
Apr 11
Apr 13
Recommended
Lewes Con Club Oct 20 Birmingham Symphony Hall Apr 14 MR. BIG, THE ANSWER,
Hitchin Club 85 Oct 21 THE KENTUCKY HEADHUNTERS, Brighton Dome Apr 16 FASTER PUSSYCAT
Southend-on-Sea Chinnery’s Oct 22 BAD TOUCH Bristol Colston Hall Apr 17 Nottingham Rock City Nov 16
Wigan Old Courts Oct 24 Newcastle The Cluny Oct 9 Reading Hexagon Apr 19 Newcastle Northumbria University Nov 17
Edinburgh Bannerman’s Oct 26 Glasgow ABC2 Oct 10 Liverpool Philharmonic Hall Apr 20 London Shepherd’s Bush Empire Nov 19
Glasgow Audio Oct 27 Manchester Academy Nov 21
Aberdeen The Assembly Oct 28 THE KILLERS MASTODON, RED FANG, Glasgow ABC Nov 22
Newcastle The Cluny Oct 29 Birmingham Genting Arena Nov 6 RUSSIAN CIRCLES Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall Nov 23
Grimsby Yardbirds Club Oct 31 Newcastle Metro Radio Arena Nov 10 Cardiff Great Hall Dec 2
Preston Continental Nov 1 Manchester Arena Nov 13 Wolverhampton Civic Hall Dec 4
Frome Cheese & Grain Nov 2 Dublin 3 Arena Nov 16 Nottingham Rock City Dec 5
Plymouth The Hub Nov 3 Belfast SSE Arena Nov 17 Newcastle Northumbria University Dec 6 NAZARETH
Southampton Talking Heads Nov 4 Leeds First Direct Arena Nov 19 Glasgow Barrowland Dec 7 London Great Portland St 229 Club Oct 13
Hastings The Carlisle Nov 5 Glasgow The Hydro Nov 20 Manchester Academy Dec 9 Norwich UEA Oct 14
Swansea Sin City Nov 6 Aberdeen GE Arena Nov 21 London Brixton Academy Dec 10
Bristol Bierkeller Nov 7 Nottingham Motorpoint Arena Nov 23 OPETH, ENSLAVED
Evesham Iron Road Nov 9 Sheffield Arena Nov 25 JOHN MAYALL Manchester The Ritz Nov 15
London Oxford Street 100 Club Nov 10 London O2 Arena Nov 27, 28 Crawley The Hawth Oct 17 Glasgow Barrowland Nov 16
Nottingham Doghouse Nov 11 Llandudno Venue Cymru Oct 18 Belfast Limelight Nov 17
Bilston Robin 2 Nov 12 LAIBACH Stoke-on-Trent Victoria Hall Oct 19 Dublin Academy Nov 18
Leicester The Musician Nov 13 London Islington Academy Nov 23 Liverpool Philharmonic Hall Oct 20 Nottingham Rock City Nov 19
Norwich Brickmakers Nov 14 Birmingham Town Hall Oct 21 Bristol Academy Nov 21
Kendal Bootleggers Nov 16 L.A. GUNS Tunbridge Wells Assembly Hall Oct 22 Birmingham Institute Nov 22
Pwlhelli Hard Rock Hell Prog Festival Nov 17 London Camden Underworld Nov 2, 4 Sheffield City Hall Oct 24
Chester Live Rooms Nov 18 Norwich Theatre Royal Oct 25 PAPA ROACH
Worcester Marrs Bar Nov 19 JONNY LANG Salisbury City Hall Oct 26 London Brixton Academy Oct 10
London Shepherd’s Bush Empire Nov 4 Truro Hall For Cornwall Oct 27 Manchester Apollo Oct 11
H.E.A.T, DEGREED, BLACK DIAMONDS Frome Cheese & Grain Oct 28
Wolverhampton Slade Rooms Nov 17 MARK LANEGAN BAND Portsmouth Kings Theatre Oct 29 PARADISE LOST, PALLBEARER
Glasgow Cathouse Nov 18 Bristol Trinity Nov 27 York Grand Opera House Oct 31 London Camden Electric Ballroom Nov 3
Nottingham Rescue Rooms Nov 19 Norwich Waterfront Nov 28 Southport Theatre Nov 1
London Islington Academy Nov 21 Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall Nov 29 London Cadogan Hall Nov 2, 3 MIKE PETERS & THE ALARM
Newcastle Boiler Shop Nov 30 Cambridge Corn Exchange Nov 4 Aberdeen Assembly Oct 6
HELLOWEEN’S PUMPKINS UNITED Liverpool Academy Dec 1 Bristol Colston Hall Nov 5 Edinburgh Liquid Room Oct 7
London Brixton Academy Nov 14 Aberdeen Garage Dec 3 Ipswich Regent Theatre Nov 7 Bristol Thekla Oct 11
Edinburgh Liquid Room Dec 4 Oxford New Theatre Nov 8 Wakefield Warehouse 23 Oct 12
HIM Belfast Mandela Hall Dec 5 Southend-on-Sea Cliffs Pavilion Nov 9 Birmingham Academy Oct 13
Glasgow Barrowland Dec 14 Dublin Academy Dec 6 Guildford G Live Nov 10 Liverpool Academy Oct 14
Nottingham Rock City Dec 15 Leeds Church Dec 8 Canterbury Marlowe Theatre Nov 11 Norwich Waterfront Oct 18
Manchester Academy Dec 16 Oxford Academy Dec 9 Blackpool Grand Theatre Nov 12 Sheffield Academy Oct 19
London Chalk Farm Roundhouse Dec 17 Southampton Engine Rooms Dec 10 Gateshead The Sage Nov 14 Oxford Academy Oct 20
Brighton Concorde 2 Dec 11 Halifax Victoria Theatre Nov 15
ILFRACOMBE BLUES FESTIVAL London Camden Koko Dec 12 High Wycombe Swan Theatre Nov 16 ROBERT PLANT, SETH LAKEMAN
THE BLUES BAND, THE PRETTY THINGS, Basingstoke The Anvil Nov 17 Plymouth Pavilions Nov 16
SNAKECHARMER, MORE THE LEMON TWIGS Dartford Orchard Theatre Nov 18 Bristol Colston Hall Nov 17
Ilfracombe John Fowler Holiday Park Nov 10-12 Manchester The Ritz Nov 10 Torquay Princess Theatre Nov 19 Wolverhampton Civic Hall Nov 20
KEVIN NIXON

Sheffield Leadmill Nov 11 Manchester Bridgewater Hall Nov 21 Llandudno Venue Cymru Nov 22
IN FLAMES, FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH Glasgow QMU Nov 12 Buxton Opera House Nov 22 Newcastle City Hall Nov 24
Birmingham BCA Dec 17 Birmingham Institute 2 Nov 14 St Albans Arena Nov 23 Liverpool Olympia Nov 25

112 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
 TOUR DATES
RECO
MME
Glasgow SEC Armadillo Nov 27 NDS Troon Winter Storm Festival Nov 25
Perth Concert Hall Nov 28
Manchester
Belfast
Apollo
Ulster Hall
Nov 30
Dec 2
THE WHITE BUFFALO FOY VANCE
Manchester RNCM Oct 28
Sheffield City Hall Dec 6 Glasgow Saint Luke’s Oct 29, 30
London Royal Albert Hall Dec 8 Dublin Olympia Oct 31
Portsmouth Guildhall Dec 11 London Highbury Union Chapel Nov 2-4
Birmingham Symphony Hall Dec 12
VENOM INC
THE PRETTY THINGS Dublin Voodoo Lounge Nov 10
London Manette Street Borderline Dec 15 Glasgow Audio Nov 11
Leicester The Musician Dec 22 Manchester Ruby Lounge Nov 12
Bristol Fleece & Firkin Nov 13
THE PROFESSIONALS London Camden Underworld Nov 14
Wolverhampton Slade Rooms Oct 27
London Highbury Garage Oct 28 VON HERTZEN BROTHERS
Nottingham Rescue Rooms Nov 5
CHUCK PROPHET Manchester Rebellion Nov 6
London ULU Folk And Roots Festival Nov 28 Sheffield Leadmill Nov 7
Hebden Bridge Trades Club Nov 18 Newcastle Think Tank Nov 9
Edinburgh La Belle Angele Nov 19 Glasgow G2 Nov 10
Cardiff Club Ifor Bach Nov 20 Pwllheli Hard Rock Hell Nov 11
Bristol Fleece & Firkin Nov 12
PROPHETS OF RAGE Norwich Waterfront Studio Nov 14
London Kentish Town Forum Nov 13 Southampton Talking Heads Nov 15
London Highbury Garage Nov 16
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE Pwllheli HRH Prog 6 Nov 17
London Wembley Arena Nov 18 Wolverhampton Slade Rooms Nov 18
Manchester Arena Nov 19
London O2 Arena Nov 21 W.A.S.P.
Edinburgh Usher Hall Nov 23 We’re not suggesting you head to the zoo or the plains of Hastings White Rock Pavilion Oct 12
Dublin 3 Arena Nov 24 Nottingham Rock City Oct 13
the USA. Check out Jake Smith and share in his cool music. Leeds Academy Oct 14
QUICKSAND Newcastle Academy Oct 15
Nottingham Rescue Rooms Nov 24 Glasgow ABC Oct 16
Manchester Sound Control Nov 25 See page below for dates, currently April 15-21. Belfast Limelight Oct 18
London Islington Academy Nov 26 Dublin Academy Oct 19
Cardiff Tramshed Oct 31 Dover Booking Hall Nov 21 Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall Oct 22
CHRIS REA Manchester The Ritz Nov 1 Aldershot West End Centre Nov 24 Manchester The Ritz Oct 21
Newcastle City Hall Nov 20 Buckley Tivoli Oct 22
Gateshead The Sage Nov 22 JOANNE SHAW TAYLOR, THRESHOLD Cardiff Tramshed Oct 24
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Nov 23 DAN PATLANSKY Pwllheli Hard Rock Hell Prog Nov 17 Bristol Academy Oct 25
Harrogate International Centre Nov 25 Gateshead The Sage Nov 7 Manchester Rebellion Nov 18 Norwich UEA Oct 26
London Hammersmith Apollo Nov 26 Cambridge Corn Exchange Nov 9 London Islington Academy Dec 10 London Kentish Town Forum Oct 27
Birmingham Symphony Hall Nov 27, 29 Manchester Bridgewater Hall Nov 10
Liverpool Philharmonic Hall Dec 1 Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Nov 12 THUNDER WEDNESDAY 13
Manchester Apollo Dec 3 Bristol Colston Hall Nov 14 Wolverhampton Civic Hall Dec 15, 16 Manchester Club Academy Oct 26
Sheffield City Hall Dec 5 London Royal Festival Hall Nov 15 Glasgow Garage Oct 27
Belfast Waterfront Dec 8 Birmingham Symphony Hall Nov 20 TOUCHSTONE London Islington Academy Oct 28
Oxford New Theatre Dec 10 Pwllheli Hard Rock Hell Prog Nov 18
Brighton Centre Dec 11 IAN SIEGAL Leicester The Musician Nov 25 WEEZER
Bournemouth BIC Dec 13 Nottingham Running Horse Dec 13 Leeds Academy Oct 23
Stourbridge Katie Fitzgerald’s Dec 14 TRAIN Manchester Apollo Oct 25
ROMEO’S DAUGHTER, HAND OF DIMES Chichester Chichester Inn Dec 15 Sheffield City Hall Oct 16 Birmingham Academy Oct 27
London Manette Street Borderline Nov 3 London Barnes Bull’s Head Dec 16 Newcastle Academy Oct 17 London Wembley Arena Oct 28
Stoke-on-Trent Eleven Nov 4 Manchester Apollo Oct 19
SIKTH Glasgow Academy Oct 20 THE WHITE BUFFALO
ULI JON ROTH, ALI CLINTON Manchester Academy 3 Dec 2 Birmingham Academy Oct 21 Manchester The Ritz Apr 15
Chester Live Rooms Dec 6 Glasgow Garage Dec 3 London Hammersmith Apollo Oct 23 Glasgow ABC Apr 16
Aberdeen Assembly Dec 8 Birmingham Institute Dec 4 Birmingham Institute Apr 17
Dundee Venue Dec 9 Bristol SWX Dec 6 TRIGGERFINGER Oxford Academy Apr 19
Glasgow The Ferry Dec 10 Brighton Concorde 2 Dec 7 Manchester Deaf Institute Oct 9 Bristol Academy Apr 20
Bilston Robin 2 Dec 11 London Camden Koko Dec 8 London Oxford Street 100 Club Oct 10 London Kentish Town Forum Apr 21
London Islington Academy Dec 12
Stoke-on-Trent Eleven Dec 13 STATUS QUO TRINITY LIVE WISHBONE ASH
Wakefield Snooty Fox Dec 15 Manchester Apollo Nov 26 STEVE ROTHERY, TOUCHSTONE, MORE Wavendon The Stables Oct 17
Oldham Whittles Dec 16 Sheffield City Hall Nov 27 London Islington Assembly Hall May 12 Dorking Dorking Halls Oct 18
Sheffield Academy Dec 17 Cardiff St David’s Hall Nov 29 London Islington Academy Oct 19
York Fibbers Dec 18 Reading Hexagon Nov 30 WALTER TROUT, SARI SCHORR Aberdare Coliseum Theatre Oct 20
Newcastle Academy Dec 19 Bournemouth BIC Dec 2 & THE ENGINE ROOM Frome Cheese & Grain Oct 21
Edinburgh Bannerman’s Dec 20 Wolverhampton Civic Hall Dec 3 Southampton The Brook Oct 9 Swindon Arts Centre Oct 22
Blackpool Waterloo Music Bar Dec 21 Glasgow Clyde Auditorium Dec 5 London Chelsea Under The Bridge Oct 10, 11 Shoreham-by-Sea Ropetackle Arts Centre Oct 24
Newcastle City Hall Dec 6 Wrexham William Aston Hall Oct 13 Southampton The Brook Oct 25
ROYAL BLOOD, AT THE DRIVE IN London Hammersmith Apollo Dec 8 Wakefield Warehouse 23 Oct 14 Wimborne Tivoli Theatre Oct 26
Cardiff Motorpoint Arena Nov 13 Preston Guildhall Oct 15 Plymouth The Hub Oct 27
Reading Rivermead Centre Nov 14 STONE SOUR, THE PRETTY RECKLESS Bilston Robin 2 Oct 17 Newmarket King Edward Hall Oct 29
Manchester Arena Nov 16 Birmingham Barclaycard Arena Nov 29 Harpenden Public Hall Oct 18 Hunstanton Princess Theatre Oct 31
Leeds First Direct Arena Nov 17 Leeds First Direct Arena Nov 30 Bristol Bierkeller Theatre Oct 20 Wirral Floral Pavilion Hall Nov 2
Birmingham Barclaycard Arena Nov 18 Brighton Centre Dec 1 Swansea Sin City Oct 21 Buckley Tivoli Nov 3
London Alexandra Palace Nov 20-22 London Brixton Academy Dec 4, 6 Pontypridd Muni Arts Centre Oct 22 Whitby Pavilion Nov 4
Glasgow The Hydro Nov 24 Cardiff Motorpoint Arena Dec 5 Salford The Lowry Nov 5
Nottingham Motorpoint Arena Nov 2 Glasgow The Hydro Dec 8 ROBIN TOWER Derby Flowerpot Nov 7
Dublin 3 Arena Nov 26 London Islington Assembly Hall Nov 29 Kendal Bootleggers Nov 9
Bournemouth BIC Nov 28 STRAY Edinburgh Jam House Nov 10
Brighton Centre Nov 29 London Manette Street Borderline Oct 20 Aberdeen Lemon Tree Nov 11
Glasgow The Ferry Nov 12
ROYAL REPUBLIC
London Camden Koko Dec 1
SUPERSUCKERS
Bristol Fleece & Firkin Oct 9
Recommended Morpeth
Stockton-on-Tees
Riverside Lodge
The ARC
Nov 14
Nov 15
Birmingham Hare & Hounds Oct 10 THE TUBES Blackpool The Layton Nov 16
ROYAL THUNDER Manchester Ruby Lounge Oct 11 Southampton Engine Rooms Nov 4 Holmfirth Picturedrome Nov 17
Manchester Deaf Institute Nov 23 London Chelsea Under The Bridge Oct 12 Bristol Fleece & Firkin Nov 5 Clitheroe The Grand Nov 18
London Tufnell Park Boston Music Room Nov 24 Leeds Brudenell Social Club Oct 15 Reading Sub 89 Nov 6
Glasgow Audio Nov 25 Newcastle Boiler Shop Nov 9 WOLFSBANE
Birmingham Mama Roux Nov 27 THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT Edinburgh Liquid Room Nov 10 Winchester The Railway Dec 15
Southampton Joiners Arms Nov 28 Chester Live Rooms Nov 6 Edinburgh Bannerman’s Dec 16
York The Crescent Nov 7 Birmingham Asylum Dec 17
SEETHER Hull Fruit Nov 8 London Islington Academy Dec 21
London Kentish Town Forum Oct 15 Stoke-on-Trent Sugarmill Nov 9 TYGERS OF PAN TANG Pontypool The Dragonfly Dec 22
Manchester The Ritz Oct 16 Leicester Dryden Street Social Nov 11 Manchester Rebellion Nov 9 Bolton Bar Metro Rocks Dec 23
Glasgow ABC Oct 17 Wolverhampton Newhampton Arts Centre Nov 12 Newcastle Think Tank Nov 10
Birmingham Institute Oct 18 Cardiff Club Ifor Bach Nov 14 Swansea Three Lamps Nov 18 DWEEZIL ZAPPA
Plymouth The Hub Nov 15 Stoke-on-Trent Eleven Nov 19 Gateshead The Sage Oct 8
KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD Brighton The Haunt Nov 16 Milton Keynes Craufurd Arms Nov 20 Salford The Lowry Oct 9
Bournemouth Mr Kyps Oct 27 Colchester Arts Centre Nov 17 Bilston Robin 2 Nov 21 London Royal Festival Hall Oct 10
London Bluesfest Oct 28 Milton Keynes Craufurd Arms Nov 19 Sutton-in-Ashfield The Diamond Nov 22 Birmingham Town Hall Oct 12
GETTY

Leamington Spa Assembly Rooms Oct 30 London Manette Street Borderline Nov 20 Grimsby Yardbirds Club Nov 23 Bexhill De La Warr Pavilion Oct 13

CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 113
 LIVE!
Dan Reed
London St Pancras Old Church
Having successfully battled his demons, the
late-80s nearly man is back with a damned
fine show in this most religious of settings.
Dan Reed is trying desperately not to swear. He has already
let loose with an accidental “crap”, and looked mortified
despite the mildness of the profanity. But it’s a battle he’s always
going to lose. The singer is fiddling with the acoustic guitar
hanging from his shoulders halfway through tonight’s stripped-
down solo performance when he accidentally utters “shit”. He Reed and CR’s Dave
looks upwards and tries not to laugh. “Oh man, it’s the Catholic Everley engage in some
in me,” he says. backroom banter.
At most venues, this would barely even register on the
obscenity scale. But St Pancras Old Church isn’t some vast
corporate hanger or sticky-floored sweat-pit. This tiny building
is a working house of God, and here “shit” – never mind “bollocks”,
“fuck” or “soapy tit wank” – feels like blasphemy in the ears of even
the most Godless heathen.
It isn’t Reed’s first time playing in a church. He’s previously
appeared at the Union Chapel a few miles up the road. Neither is he
here for religious reasons – the singer’s personal spiritual map takes in
several different paths, including Buddhism and Judaism.
“Churches were designed with acoustics in mind, so the priest could
be heard without any amplification,” he says. “It’s nice that these places
that were so revered and sacred back in the day are shifting their
energies to art.”
We’re sitting in the church’s side room, a study-come-library filled
with ecclesiastical paraphernalia and the faintly musty smell associated
with most places of Christian worship. Reed is friendly and attentive. It’s only the sound-
The tumbling hair that was his signature when he first started check, Dan. There
out is long gone, and he’s sporting a baggy grey sweatshirt, but will be people later…
he still has a rock-star aura.
When he was 14, Reed wanted to be a priest. He was raised
a Catholic by his adoptive parents on a farm in South Dakota. As
a youngster he served as an altar boy, played the church organ
and read scriptures. And then he heard Van Halen’s first album.
“That kind of changed my thought process,” he says with
a laugh. “I discovered rock’n’roll and stopped going to church.
I gave up on religion for a long time.”
Nearly 40 years on Reed has returned to the bosom of the
church, physically if not spiritually. Perched on a green verge
between Camden Town’s cramped red brick flats and skeletal
gas tanks and the gleaming modern rail terminus at St Pancras,
the venue belongs to a different age. There’s evidence that
worship has taken place here since at least the seventh century,
if not longer.
Tonight, 150 or so people will cram inside this tiny church to
pay a different kind of devotion to a man whose own journey
has been studded with its share of trauma. In the late 80s, Reed
was tipped to become rock’n’roll’s next big star. His band, the
Dan Reed Network, were pitched as Bon Jovi meets Prince –
stadium-ready funk-rock anthems with an undercurrent that
was one part soul, one part sex. Except it never happened for
the Network, and Reed disappeared from the public eye into his
own personal hell.
By the mid-90s he had embarked on a career as a nightclub owner
in Portland, Oregon. Music took a back seat as he focused on his new
vocation. Drugs were part and parcel of the job – he moved from spliff
and ecstasy to liquid acid, crystal meth and cocaine. When the septum
part of his nose gave out he graduated to smoking crack. It took the
death of his father in 2003 to bring him back to reality.
“It seems like a dream now, like some kind of film that I watched as
opposed to me relating to it directly,” he says. “But I know he’s always
there, lurking. I’m not afraid of that person. I don’t think that he will
come back again. Especially with my son in this world.”
These days, Reed lives in Prague with his partner, Katka, and

114 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
 ‘In this sett
ing Reed’s
REVIEWS
voice, allow
ed to shine
sounds ste ,
llar.’ Reed greets his
congregation.

CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 115
 LIVE!
their son, although he’s taken the long way round to
get there. After his father’s death, he decided to clean
up and travel to India. There, he found himself living
in monastery in Dharamsala with a group of Tibetan
Buddhist monks (he had first visited the monastery
a decade earlier to interview the Dalai Lama for Spin
magazine). “They put me to work cleaning dishes
and picking vegetables,” he recalls. “We started
doing meditations, and I’d go off and meet families
that had just had children or lost love ones, doing
meditations for them.”
Ironically, it was in the monastery that he
rediscovered his love of music. One of the monks
asked Reed to teach him the lyrics to Queen’s We Will
Rock You. “He didn’t know what the song was called,
he just knew the rhyhtm – the du-du-DUH,” he says.
“It’s very much like a Tibetan prayer rhythm.” Reed
bought a cheap guitar from a nearby town. “It was at
116 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
that moment that I realised I should
never have turned my back on music.”
He slowed clawed back his career,
first as a solo artist and then with
the reactivated Dan Reed Network.
Salvation is a theme of his latest
album, Confessions (an apt title, given
our surroundings). Stripped-back,
low-key and played mostly by Reed
himself, it’s unashamedly an album
about love, an old-fashioned concept
in 2017. Not that Reed cares.
“I’ve always tried to walk the line
between trying to say something
political or socially conscious and
writing love songs,” he says. “Rather than bitch
and moan about stuff that was going on yet again,
I thought I’d write something that was a sanctuary,
an escape from that stuff.
This is the first album
where I went: ‘Every song
is going to be about my
“I would tell the 1987
relationship to romance, me to relax, it’s all going
whether that’s the pain
that’s been caused in my to be okay in the end.”
life and that I’ve caused to
Dan Reed
others, or the joy.’”
On the album, Reed doesn’t shy away from his
mistakes, addressing the demons he once battled.
Some of the songs are clearly about his current
partner, but others hark back to past lovers. Day
One (‘You took care of me when I was broken’) was
written with an ex-girlfriend named Jen in mind. “She
‘Indestruct
Champion
ible and
crackle wit
hope and o h
ptimism.’
The ravages of time – and
crack – have thankfully left
Reed’s voice untouched.
helped me when I was an addict,” he says. “And I was
thinking about the Tibetan monks who took me into
the monastery as well, when I was trying to get over
my guilt at being an addict. I felt like my soul was dirty
and I didn’t belong there, but they welcomed me.”
T
he latest stop-off on Reed’s 15-year road to
salvation has brought him to this tiny church.
Fittingly, tonight’s show is a small-scale one.
The church nave holds around 150 people, half of
them seated (chairs not pews, sadly). Reed supported
the Stones and Bowie back in the day, but he says a
gig of this size makes him way more nervous. “It’s just
so intimate,” he says. “Every note you play, every lyric
you sing, the intention has to be so honest and pure if
you want to effect emotion.”
Still, it isn’t like he hasn’t played shows this
up-close-and-personal before. Reed was invited to
play a series of fundraising
shows for Barack Obama
when he ran for President
for the second time in
2012. Someone involved
in the campaign had heard
his most recent album
Coming Up For Air and
figured his message of
optimism chimed with what Obama was saying.
“You’d play for twenty rich people who wanted to
throw down two grand or five grand for election. I’d
play for half an hour, unplugged and no PA. You’d get
feedback: ‘That was really lovely, you really touched
my heart.’ Or you’d have grown men crying.”
 St Pancras Old Church is
a wonderful setting in
which to play live music.
Reed enjoyed the intimacy of these shows. He
decided he should do more of them, and not just for
political reasons. Over the past few years, he has
played birthdays, wedding celebrations, even a couple
of funerals. “For me to go and play someone’s home,
it’s an honour,” he says.
How much would it cost for you to come and play
my front room?
“A thousand pounds,” he says, without
hesitation. “If people charge twenty pounds
to come, and there are forty or fifty other
people there, they make most of their money
back. I cover my flights to get there. I know
people that are in bigger bands who charge
more, but it’s more than enough for me.
I used to do construction work for a hundred
and fifty bucks a day, hauling sheetrock and
risking sawing your fingers off with power
tools. I’m always grateful.”
Tonight’s show has the same feeling as
a living room gig, albeit in slightly holier
surroundings. But there’s one difference:
a pair of video cameras are perched at either
side of the stage, here to film the show. The
reasoning is, quite rightly, that fans would
want their memories of the night preserved
(a DVD download is included in the £20
ticket costs).
Reed has certainly made a sartorial effort,
swapping the grey sweatshirt for a smart
shirt, though the nerves remain. “I’m trying
a few different things tonight,” he says,
before launching into the opening track,
a cover of James Taylor’s Fire And
Rain. “I’ve never had the courage
to sing this, cos it’s a finger-picking
song. I’m going to try and get over the
terror and play it for you.”
The show is essentially in two
parts. For the first third, Reed sticks
to something approaching a set-list,
mixing solo songs with the odd cover,
notably a lovely, lilting take on Elvis’s Can’t Help Falling
In Love (“The first song I learned to play as a kid”).
But for the rest of the night he throws the set-list
to the wind and takes requests from the audience.
Predictably, there are plenty of shouts for songs by his
old band. Stronger Than Steel and Lover, Don’t Betray
Me strip back the studio gloss, showcasing the pristine
songwriting at the heart of them. But it’s not just
Reed tries hard not to swear
in a house of God, but can
smile at the odd slip.
a nostalgia trip – post-redemption solo and Dan Reed
Network numbers Indestructible and Champion crackle
with hope and optimism, even in their starkest form.
In this setting, Reed’s voice sounds stellar. Back in
the late 80s and early 90s, it was half-buried amid
the Network’s supple, elastic funk-rock, but here’s it’s
allowed to shine. The ravages of time – and crack –
have thankfully left it untouched. Vaulting but never
showy, it bounces from the wall to the ceiling even
when he pulls away from the microphone.
Not everything is perfect. Whatever Dreams May
Come, inspired by the death of comedian Robin
Williams and named after one of his films, is the
wrong side of mawkish. The same goes for Jerusalem
Sky, with its we’re-all-children-of-the-same God
message (Reed studied Judaism in that city in
the 00s). But the sheer honesty and utter lack of
cynicism with which both are delivered are
impossible to fault.
He ends with Tiger In A Dress, the
Network’s 1989 hit-single-that-never-was
and a song that is far too salacious for these
surroundings. “It definitely wasn’t designed
to be played in a church,” he says.
Blasphemy be damned – if nothing else,
it’s a reminder of the potential he once had
and, in a weird way, still has. But which Dan
Reed does he prefer: the thrusting young
buck of 1987 with the world at his feet, or the
older, wiser, more spiritual version of today?
“Oh, definitely this one,” he said before
the show. “That one was so obsessed with
trying to make it off the farm, to be Eddie
Van Halen or David Lee Roth. I just wanted
to make it. I didn’t care about sex or drugs or
money, I just wanted to be accepted by the
world. After everything I put myself through,
I can see how hollow that was. If I met that
guy, I’d tell him to relax, it’s all going to be
okay in the end.”
Words: Dave Everley Photos: Alison Clarke
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 117
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS WITH: MAGMA, RADIOHEAD, BRAND X, SONS OF APOLLO + MORE…

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 ‘A stompin
g wall-of-
REVIEWS
sound six-p
iece with
driving dy
namics.’
The Psychedelic Furs
London Kentish Town O2 Forum
The ever-underrated art-rockers play
all the hits and more.
Psychedelic Furs frontman Richard Butler doesn’t
say much when he’s onstage, but that’s fine. He
plays the charismatic rock star with aplomb: pacing,
crouching, theatrically acting out every line with fluid
arms, hitting those crucifixion poses to perfection.
Insanely fit for a 61-year-old, his unique, rolling rasp of
a voice seems at first irrationally high in the mix. Then
it becomes clear that everyone at this sold-out The
Singles Tour show is bellowing along to his cryptic
couplets, so it makes sense.
Forty years ago the Furs’ witty, poetic onslaughts
emerged from punk and then sidled into New Wave
with a Bowie-esque knack for gorgeous/gritty hits.
Success in America and the co-opting of their song
Pretty In Pink disrupted them, and a 90s hiatus ensued.
Now re-established as a killer touring band, they’re
a stomping wall-of-sound six-piece with driving
dynamics, Richard’s brother Tim still on bass, and
a twist of saxophone mania from Mars Williams. So in
random order we get early snarls such as We Love You,
their evolution through Dumb Waiters and Mr Jones into
measured, haunting reveries like The Ghost In You and Love
My Way, and semi-dance bangers like Heartbreak Beat.
There’s the ideal mix of nostalgia and energy in the air
and their first London gig in five years goes supernova
with a titanic, topical encore of Sister Europe, President Richard Butler: playing
Gas and India. Heaven. the charismatic rock
star with aplomb.
Chris Roberts

Voodoo Six Junkyard, Spread Eagle, The Babe Rainbow

London The Underworld
The Kings are now more majestic
than ever.
They’ve been here before, of course. Voodoo
Six have packed this venue and seemingly
been on the verge of big things, yet each time
previously, they’ve contrived to blow it. This could
be their last chance to achieve something special,
and what Voodoo Six do tonight suggests they’ll
grab this opportunity and make it work.
Whereas in the past, bassist Tony Newton has
appeared to be the band’s focal point onstage, now
the combination of guitarist Matt Pearce and vocalist
Nik Taylor-Stoakes is very much the fulcrum of it all.
The former is a virtuoso who is clearly a team player,
while the latter’s a singer who has an Eddie Vedder
edge with the power of Ricky Warwick.
All this means there’s a renewed vitality about
the five. The show is an album launch celebration,
so inevitably they showcase a significant chunk
of Make Way For The King, and nobody complains.
These songs have a contemporary groove, yet also
a timeless sense of tune. And the band are clearly
in the mood to give these tracks their full attention,
while not forgetting about past glories. This makes
the performance nicely balanced.
“We can play all night,” exclaims Taylor-Stoakes.
Sadly, he’s thwarted by a dreaded curfew. However,
Voodoo Six pack their 80 minutes in the limelight
with an exciting sense of destiny.
GETTY
Shark Island
London Camden Underworld
What kept everybody?
Some 28 years after their major-label debut
Law Of The Order was released, Shark Island
– well, frontman Richard Black and hired hands –
finally arrive in the UK. It’s appropriate that they
begin with Make A Move as Black, who claims that
Axl Rose ripped off all of his stage mannerisms,
still sashays, twirls like a spinning top and works
every inch of stage. The music sounds great too.
Tonight also marks the first time that Spread
Eagle, featuring current UFO man Rob De Luca on
bass, have performed outside their United States
homeland. Back On The Bitch, Switchblade Serenade
and Suzy Suicide are embellished by flashy stun-
guitar runs, reminding us why the New Yorkers are
regarded as slightly glammy, hard rockin’ cult heroes.
Back in the UK after more than a quarter of
a century since their last visit, Junkyard have hardly
changed, save for the absence of co-founding
guitarist Brian Baker who now plays with Bad
Religion. Each member sports a denim cut-off held
together by patches, spit and sheer optimism.
The music is a formulaic mix of southern rock,
punk and rockin’ boogie. Had the members of the
Quo met in a truckstop in Tennessee they might
have sounded something like this, but Junkyard can
still tear it up like few others, a finale of Girlschool’s
Emergency hitting the right note.
London The Moth Club
The ironic hipster boogie: seems so
wrong, feels so right.
From Australia’s hippie idyll Byron Bay via the
same people who bought you King Gizzard
& The Lizard Wizard, The Babe Rainbow are an
enticing prospect. Ridiculously good looking (singer
Angus Darling has the boyish charm of a young Kurt
Cobain, while guitarist Jack ‘Cool-Breeze’ Crowther
looks like a man Cecil B. DeMille would cast as God),
they’re in town to promote their debut album, and
they’re not playing by the rules.
Starting with a new song, in near darkness, it’s
quickly apparent they don’t have to: the venue is sold
out, everyone seems to know every word, and the
audience groove and jive and shimmy in a way that
hasn’t been seen in the wild since the late 1960s.
The shuffling Peace Blossom Boogy is a highlight.
The stunningly funky Monkey Disco is another. Hell,
they’re all highlights. It’s like Canned Heat playing
Abbey Road-era Beatles, via an excursion to Studio
54 at the height of disco. There’s crowd surfing,
and a lazy swing through Blondie’s Heart Of Glass,
and it all feels like it could collapse at any minute,
but it doesn’t.
There’s no doubt that there’s a hipster element
to the band’s audience. But if we’re going to start
dismissing musicians because some of their
followers serve lattes or develop mobile apps,
then we’re doomed. The Babe Rainbow are brilliant.

Malcolm Dome Dave Ling Fraser Lewry

CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 119
 Heavy Load Heavy questions for heavy rockers

Ricky Warwick on the bands he’s been in, getting drunk

for the first time, life, death and uncomfortable clogs.
Interview: Michael Hann

R
icky Warwick has spent 30 years at rock’s coal face, as I’d made into it, and I was thinking maybe I shouldn’t be doing this any more.
frontman, sideman, solo artist and hired hand. He’s After that I don’t think I touched my guitar for a year, and I seriously questioned
been a punk with New Model Army, a rocker with The whether I wanted to carry on making music. It was a really shitty time.
Almighty and the designated filler of some very big
shoes as the man who stepped up to front the post-Phil Did The Almighty fulfil their potential?
Lynott Thin Lizzy. That Lizzy reunion evolved into Black That’s a really good question. We definitely reached a peak around ninety-
Star Riders, who tour the UK in November. Warwick four/ninety-five, and then I think we weren’t getting along and that was the
spoke to Classic Rock at his home in Los Angeles. main problem, more than the music. In hindsight, maybe we should have
taken a break for a year and a half instead
What were you like at school? of splitting up. But I don’t have any regrets.
There were two stages. When I was at
school at Northern Ireland I was pretty And then into Thin Lizzy. Standing in
quiet and withdrawn. Then when I turned for Phil Lynott must have been difficult.
fourteen or fifteen I started getting a bit I knew how hard it was going to be, and how
more rambunctious. And then we moved certain people would feel about it. But I felt
to Scotland and it all went downhill from I could do Phil, Thin Lizzy and the legacy
there – starting fights, getting into fights, justice. At no point was I stupid enough to
messing around. A lot of underage drinking. think I could stand in those shoes, all I can
do is stand beside them and try my best,
Can you remember the first time you without trying to be a clone of Phil.
drank yourself sick?
Absolutely. It was an under-eighteens disco, Do you believe in God?
and we’d snuck in a litre bottle of vodka I would call myself a humanist – I believe
mixed with Coke. I remember the hall in a higher power, but I think it’s Mother
starting to spin wildly. Next thing I knew Nature or karma.
I was on my hands and knees and there
was vomit flying everywhere. What’s your biggest regret?
I don’t have too many. I would have loved
When you played guitar in New Model to have spent more time with my father
Army did they make you wear clogs? before he passed away.
[Laughs] They didn’t make me wear them,
but I wanted to. I wanted to fit in. I was And your biggest waste of money?
so in awe of the whole New Model Army I just bought a new car. It might be that.
thing – the band and the following. I was so A Ford Mustang. The family’s getting older
thrilled to be a part of that. But clogs were now, so I’ve indulged myself. I’m not a very
uncomfortable, so I didn’t wear them that materialistic person.
much and went back to the motorcycle boots.
A rock singer and a Mustang. What are
When did you first realise you could your insurance premiums like?
be a frontman? It’s okay in the USA for an old rock musician
Seeing Stiff Little Fingers in 1980 was the
defining moment. I went to see them in
“Seeing Stiff Little and a Mustang. I’ve been driving for thirty-
three years and my licence is clean, so it’s not
Belfast and it literally changed my life.
I walked out of the concert going: “That’s
Fingers in 1980 literally that bad!

it. Forget about the football. Forget about

schoolwork. I need to be up on that stage.” changed my life.” When death eventually comes, how
would you like to go?
Quickly, in my sleep, and at a good old age.
In the late nineties you had a fraught time with The Almighty: in and My father went out in the perfect way. He was eighty-four. He had a heart attack
out and in and out. Did those experiences make you question whether and died in my mother’s arms, the woman he’d been with for sixty-five years.
you should be in a band? He just went. If you’re gonna go, that’s right up there – in peace and with as little
They absolutely did. When The Almighty split in 1996 I jumped straight into fuss as possible.
a three-piece. And we were doing really well. We went to Japan, recorded
RICHARD STOW/PRESS

a record, we were getting great reviews, a lot of interest from labels. I don’t want What words will be engraved on your tombstone?
to cry ‘poor me’, but we had one label pull out the night before we were about to “Here lies Ricky Warwick. Cum On Feel The Noize.”
sign a big deal. I was starting to get very disillusioned with the whole business.
When that ended I was in Dublin, going through a divorce. I’d put all the money Black Star Riders’ U K tour runs from November 8 to 19.

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